John Cephas

John Cephas (born September 4, 1930 , Washington, DC ; † March 4, 2009 , Woodford , Virginia ) was an American blues guitarist and singer and one of the most important representatives of the Piedmont blues style.

Life

As a child he listened to blues music and began to play guitar by ear. Growing up in Bowling Green, Virginia, he soon became familiar with the Piedmont Blues. His inspiration came from local musicians such as B. Blind Boy Fuller but also white blues musicians. He learned the basics of the Piedmont style from his cousin David Talliaferro. Apart from music, he worked as a gospel singer, carpenter and fisherman. In 1951 he was drafted into the army and served in Korea.

But at the beginning of the 1960s he turned to music professionally. For several years he played with the barrel house pianist Big Chief Ellis . Together with Phil Wiggins , a harmonica player whom he met at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington, they formed the duo Cephas and Wiggins in 1978, which was discovered by German producer Axel Kustner in 1979. This made a European tour possible. She spent the 1980s, often as ambassadors for the US State Department, on extensive tours on all continents. In 1988 they were one of the first Americans to play at the Russian Folk Festival in Moscow. They also performed at blues festivals around the world. The two recorded many albums together that are excellent examples of the piedmont blues played in Washington and northern Virginia.

In 1987 John Cephas was a founding member of the Washington, DC Blues Society.

Awards

• WC Handy Award 1987 for Dog Days in August in the category Best Traditional Blues Album
• National Heritage Fellowship 1989

Discography

• Living Country Blues 1: Bowling Green John Cephas & Harmonica Phil Wiggins, (1980) reissued in 1998 as Goin 'Down the Road Feelin' Bad
• Sweet Bitter Blues (1984)
• Let it Roll: Bowling Green (1985)
• Guitar Man (1987)
• Dog Days in August (1987)
• Walking Blues (1988)
• Flip, Flop and Fly (1992)
• Cool Down (1996)
• Homemade (1999)
• From Richmond to Atlanta (2000)
• Somebody Told the Truth (2002)
• Shoulder to shoulder (?)
• Richmond Blues (2008)

literature

• Brian Beatty: Cephas & Wiggins. Somebody told the truth . In: Blues Revue 80 (2003), p. 45 f.
• Rich DelGrosso: Acoustic Profile. Cephas and Wiggins - Heart of the Piedmont Blues . In: Blues Revue 42 (November 1998), p. 20.
• Gregory Isola: John Cephas. Homemade Piedmont Blues . In: Guitar Player 33 (1999), pp. 29, 32
• Orville Johnson: Blues Ambassador. Piedmont-style guitarist John Cephas Travels the World Sowing the Seeds of the Blues . In: Acoustic Guitar 11 (2001), pp. 52-54, 58-60, 62.
• Barry Pearson: Bowling Green John Cephas and Harmonica Phil Wiggins. DC Country Blues . In: Living Blues 63 (1985), pp. 14-20.
• Barry Lee Pearson: Cephas and Wiggins. Blues is nourishment for the human spirit . In: Living Blues 30 (1999), pp. 14-21

Web links

• Washington Blues Society
• Larry Benicewicz: remembering John Cephas
• Cephas & Wiggins playing Richmond Blues

Individual evidence

1. ↑ http://www.bluesart.at/NeueSeiten/2009%20Remembering%20John%20Cephas.html
2. ↑ http://www.bluesart.at/NeueSeiten/2009%20Remembering%20John%20Cephas.html
3. ↑ http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/08/arts/music/08cephas.html
4. ↑ http://www.alligator.com/index.cfm?section=artists&artistID=165&currTrackNum=0&playPosition=0&vol=0&pan=0&playState=play,play
5. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from August 19, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
6. ↑ http://www.alligator.com/index.cfm?section=artists&artistID=165&currTrackNum=0&playPosition=0&vol=0&pan=0&playState=play,play