Piedmont blues musician Shelton Powe performs on the Music of the Carolinas stage this Sunday! Powe plays in the Piedmont finger-style guitar tradition of his parents and elders. Listening to him play and sing, you find yourself back at the wellspring of the Carolina Blues tradition. Powe says most of the songs he plays are tunes he remembers from childhood. They come to him in fits. He enters musical flashbacks, finding himself a child sitting in a pew enamored by the harmonies of the elders in his Baptist church, or hearing his mother and father singing and playing around the house. More than a musical fancy, the Carolina blues is a piece of this musician, and his honest delivery is captivating. Powe currently works with the Hillsborough-based Music Maker Relief Foundation, which released his debut album, Carolina Blues and Gospel, earlier this year. (John Dee Holeman, who was previously scheduled to perform, has had to cancel due to illness. We wish him a full recovery!)
