Arquivo

Ciclo Hootenanny

Uma das sonoridades mais característica – e socialmente significativa – dos blues é a que resulta da verdadeira reinvenção da modesta e aparentemente simples harmónica vocal, a blues harp. Phil Wiggins é considerado um dos actuais virtuosos da peculiar expressividade de um instrumento inseparável do caminho percorrido pelos blues desde o Delta até aos palcos contemporâneos. Além de talentoso compositor, é também actor, participando nomeadamente no filme de John Sayles Matewan (1987), sobre a «batalha de Blair Mountain», o maior levantamento armado dos mineiros norte-americanos, em 1921.

One of the blues’ most characteristic and socially significant sounds is their reinvention of the harmonica. Phil Wiggins is a virtuoso of this highly expressive instrument, which is inseparable from the history of the blues from the Delta to today’s stage. As well as being a talented composer, he is also an actor, and most notably appeared in John Sayles’s 1987 film Matewan about the “battle of Blair Mountain”, an armed rising of American miners in 1921.
Although he plays in other bands, normally Phil Wiggins performs as part of a duo. At the Hootenanny, he will be joined by the Reverend John Wilkins, a guitarist and singer, and one of a fascinating line of American performers linked both to music and religion.