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Musician Eric Bibb poses with a National steel guitar once owned by bluesman Booker White. The instrument inspired Bibb’s new album, “Booker’s Guitar,” and his tour makes a stop Wednesday at the Community Concert Hall at Fort Lewis College.
Eric Bibb, blues/folk/soul, 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Community Concert Hall at Fort Lewis College. Tickets: $18 balcony, $20 orchestra, $22 plaza; available by phone at 247-7657, online at www.durangoconcerts.com or at the downtown box office at Seventh Street and Main Avenue.
Eric Bibb is one of those musicians who defies traditional description.
The easiest pigeonhole label is to call Bibb a bluesman, but that's more an introduction to his style, which crosses over into soul and traditional folk music. Now, with the January release of his CD “Booker's Guitar," Wednesday's audience at the Community Concert Hall at Fort Lewis College will see yet another persona from the versatile songwriter.
“These songs are really about real places and real people, so I'll be in storyteller mode," Bibb said Thursday from a barber's chair in Southern California.
“Booker's Guitar" is a great story before the first song is even heard. While on a tour in northern England, a fan approached Bibb with a unique offer.
“He said: 'If you're interested, I'm the owner of Booker White's main guitar. You can play it if you'd like.' But he wouldn't sell it to me," Bibb said.
Bibb took the man up on his offer, and he plays the original 1930s-vintage National steel owned by Delta bluesman White (an accurate description, to be sure) on the title track of the new album. For the rest of the tracks, it's Bibb singing simple songs in the spirit of White's bluesy style, and that's the show he's taken on tour. No band, just Bibb, a slew of custom six, nine and 12-string guitars and lots of audience interaction.
“I've done some of this with my band, but I wanted to keep with the sound of the record, which is just me. It'll be up to the sound engineer: I want to tell the story, and we can do that with the right sound," Bibb said.
The story is a good one. Bibb was born in New York City and grew up as a performing musician. His father, Leon, played in bands and on television, and Eric began playing guitar at age 6. As a young man in the 1960s, Bibb was therefore “in the know" when the Delta blues sound of the '30s and '40s found a resurgence, and that's when he first heard Booker White's music. White, a cousin of B.B. King, never achieved the fame of his contemporaries after a a few jail stints, including two years in the notorious Parchman Farm in Mississippi.
“But I loved his music as a kid, and when I came across that guitar it just brought all that back. So I wrote songs about it," Bibb said.
ted@durangoherald.com