The first week opens on July 14 in Cevio with the third European Blues Night. This year on stage Danish, Swiss and English musicians.
Nisse Thorbjorn, stage name Copenhagen Slim (“A young and talented man living the tradition of the Delta Blues”): the musician, who returned from a stay in Chicago, won the Danish Blues Award. Since then there have been numerous tours throughout Europe with the solo project in which he is a singer, guitarist and harmonica player, purist of a Delta sound and of the more typical Chicago Blues. In 2018 he published his latest work Robert Johnson was here, just to stay on topic ...
Following, during the same evening, the Nigerian singer Justina Lee Brown will perform, who for more than ten years has been carrying her music and her message around the world, carrying her profound ideology like a flag: "Love and equals rights for all men on earth ”. She grew up in Ajegule Town, a ghetto on the outskirts of Lagos, with great willpower she managed to free herself from her tragic reality, made up of abuse and abuse. Music has since become a reason for survival, love a weapon. In her voice stands out all the suffering that Justina does not try to hide on stage, where she instead releases all her anger. Her style is close to Funk-Soul and African Fusion.
Finally Kaz Hawkins, an internationally awarded artist, “capable of combining technique and pathos”. In 2016 she started her solo career, winning the European Blues Award and winning fans around the world. He has a deep and powerful voice, a bursting stage presence, with his energy, his talent, his joy of living and singing, he sends fans a message full of hope: it shows that music can soothe and sometimes save lost souls. . She herself has risen from her own ashes and today more than ever she remains one of the most interesting and prepared blues voices on the European scene. Born in Belfast, she soon discovers Blues, Gospel, Jazz, all those African American music for which she has a voice and groove.
The second evening, that of July 15th, catapulted us into Southern rock and Texas Blues, with influences however marked by Soul and Blues. We start with the Hotlanta. The name of the band refers to the legendary instrumental track from the dawn of the Allman Brothers Band. There is therefore great curiosity around this new group, born from an idea of Matteo Bertini and Rocco Lombardi. The band's Southern Rock suffers marked soul and blues influences, which still take the listener to the deep south of the United States of America.
On the other hand, Neal Black & the Healers in Vallemaggia is a welcome return, protagonists in 2012 of one of the most exciting and engaging evenings at the Magic Blues, an accomplice in addition to Neal Black, the Royal Southern Brotherhood. The great Texan guitarist boasts an almost thirty-year career alongside Robben Ford, Jimmy Dawkins. Chuck Berry, Papa John Creach and Popa Chubby. Defined "the master of High Voltage Texas Boogie", if we add to the amazing guitarist a grave, hoarse voice, halfway between Tom Waits and Howlin 'Wolf, steeped in Tequila and a great skill as a songwriter, it is difficult to understand how Neal Black does not is still risen to the Olympus of the Blues like his, perhaps less deserving, colleagues. At the dawn of Stevie Ray Vaughan's natural heir to his acrobatics and amazing six-string speed, today he has his own well-defined, modern style, clearly derived from the Texas Blues, of which, after the death of Johnny Winter, he is one of the most significant representatives.
