May 12 | 8:30 pm - 11:00 pm
Towne Crier Cafe
379 Main Street, Beacon, 12508 United States

Additional Information

Two legendary artists share the stage for this special show!

Over four decades the contributions of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee John Sebastian have become a permanent part of our American musical fabric.

His group The Lovin' Spoonful played a major role in the mid-'60s rock revolution, but what leader, singer and songwriter Sebastian had in mind was actually a counter-revolution. "We were grateful to the Beatles for reminding us our rock & roll roots," John explains, "but we wanted to cut out the English middlemen, so to speak, and get down to making this new music as an 'American' band."

The Lovin' Spoonful's first seven singles made it to the Top 10 – unprecedented and utterly unthinkable at the height of Beatlemania. At first they'd taken older material from blues, country, folk and jug band sources - what we now term "roots music" - and made it sound modern. Then, in a series of original songs composed and sung by John Sebastian, they did the reverse, creating thoroughly modern music that sounded like it contained the entire history of American music.

This music had an immediate and indelible impression on the public consciousness, but John Sebastian was already well-known on the Greenwich Village folk scene. Making his bow as a member of the Even Dozen Jug Band, his skills on guitar, harmonica and autoharp soon made him a sought-after accompanist, working with Fred Neil, Tim Hardin, Mississippi John Hurt, Judy Collins, Bob Dylan and many others.

Multiple Grammy & WC Handy Award winner Joe Louis Walker is one of the most heralded blues artists of our time. Walker has recorded with BB King, James Cotton, Bonnie Raitt, Taj Mahal, Branford Marsalis and Ike Turner.

Walker has become an international ambassador for the blues overseas, having played at countless festivals throughout Europe, South America, Australia, the Middle East and Asia. Joe Louis Walker is already being referred to within the blues world as a "living legend." However, as Walker himself would say, "the best is yet to come!"

$55 advance/ $60 at the door