|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Venues |
Press Quality Photo - click to download
Video
Reviews
Blue Wing Blues Festival's fourth year keeps Upper Lake
hopping
|
Written by T. Watts
|
Tuesday, 10 August 2010
|
UPPER LAKE, Calif. – It has been this correspondent’s
pleasure to witness the four season metamorphosis of the Blue Wing Blues
Festival from a neighborhood musical gathering to a full-fledged, world-class
entity.
Saturday night’s opener was Boogie Piano Queen Wendy DeWitt.
As reported 16 months ago when she last played the Tallman Hotel’s Concerts
With Conversation series, DeWitt is a gifted stylist. She is fluent in the
styles of the great masters of blues and boogie piano. The list includes Otis
Spann, Memphis Slim, Big Maceo, Joe Duskin, Meade Lux Lewis, Little Brother
Montgomery, Pete Johnson and a host of others.
Wendy DeWitt with Kirk Harwood on drums performed at the Blue
Wing Blues Festival on Saturday, August 7, 2010. Photo by T. Watts.
DeWitt is quite capable of holding a crowd’s attention without
accompaniment but came to this year’s engagement with a drummer, Kirk
Harwood.
DeWitt and Harwood kept the crowd’s rapt attention throughout.
So intense was her captivation of the guests that even the dancers remained
seated throughout, slack-jawed in awe of DeWitt’s dexterity and comic timing.
She closed with a Memphis Slim tune and left to a standing
ovation. Of course she was convinced to do an encore. DeWitt offered up tasty
servings of the aforementioned styles. She included compositions penned by
Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, Fats Domino, Ahmet Ertegan, Gershwin and many
others.
T. Watts is a writer, radio host and music critic. Visit his
Web site at www.teewatts.biz .
|
Bio
Wendy DeWitt
Blues piano/vocals, Queen of Boogie Woogie
wendydewitt.com 510/223 8499
From Seattle to Paris Wendy spreads the gospel of Chicago based blues piano and boogie woogie. She’s well steeped in the stylings of Otis Spann, Memphis Slim, Sunnyland Slim and Albert Ammons - the greats of boogie and blues, and honed her skills working with contemporary artists Steve Freund, Otis Rush and the late Hank Ballard who’s love of the blues showed in all of his rock classics.
Wendy has appeared with Charlie Musselwhite, Otis Rush, and Etta James and has been featured at Berkeley’s historic venue, Freight and Salvage. She performed at the Cincinnati Blues Fest at the internationally acclaimed Arches Piano stage, headed to Boston with Hank Ballard and the Midnighters for a performance at the Boston Symphony Hall and played before a sold out audience at the San Diego Museum of Art with Hadda Brooks in what proved to be one of Hadda’s last shows. Wendy has performed at many major festivals including Peer in Belgium, San Francisco Blues Fest, and Monterey Blues, and Jazz Fests.
Solo or with her band Wendy puts on a high energy show. Material is either written by Wendy or reinvented in her style and delivered with passion. Wendy is afraid of no guitar player and has opened solo for Jimmy Thackery and the drivers and Deborah Coleman.
Along with her busy performing schedule Wendy is the producer of the Queens of Boogie Woogie shows around California and the Blues Piano Orgy productions in the San Francisco Bay Area. Songs from Wendy’s six albums are heard on radio around the world and she has been a frequent guest on the nationally syndicated West Coast Live.
Recordings include :
Take a Little Walk With Me
“ Heavyweight guitarists such as Steve Freund and Dave Workman will attest to Wendy’s extraordinary ability at the 88’s, as did the late Rock & Roll architect, Hank Ballard...Wendy’s vocals are natural and unaffected, ...her piano work is of the first order...” Sean Carney, Columbus Blues Review
You’re Not There
“ ..DeWitt is a sweet-voiced chanteuse with a strong reliance on jazz phrasing and inflection. Her piano style is based on those of Otis Spann, Albert Ammons and other blues masters, and she tears it up on the closer, “Chupacabra Boggie Woogie”…”
Bob Cianci - Blues Revue
Soul Shake
Steve Freund’s C is for Chicago
Boogie Teaser Too (solo recording)
Santa Cruz Jazz Fest, CA
Cow Palace - San Francisco, CA
Santa Cruz Blues Festival, CA
San Francisco Blues Festival, CA
Cincinatti Blues Festival, OH
Bodega Bay Art and Wine, CA
Francis Ford Coppola Winery, Napa CA
ComFest, Columbus OH
Blossom Music Fest, OH
Heritage Festival, St. Croix, USVI
Les Nuits des Boogie Woogie, Paris FRANCE
Skinny Legs, St. John, USVI
Boogie Woogie Fest, Brussels, BELGIUM
Le Roquebreau Boogie Woogie Fest, FRANCE
