Experimental Blues pairs artists of juxtaposing styles in intimate concerts to create, highlight, and explore the intersection of Blues with other Black American music and musical genres—such as Negro spirituals, gospel, jazz, R&B, soul, hip hop, and more. Explore the Blues Series >>
This season’s three Experimental Blues concerts continue with Nat Myers, a Korean American blues poet raised on hardcore and hip hop and Milwaukee, singer-songwriter, Buffalo Nichols.
Myers, an inherently restless spirit, begrudgingly pushed into music by his music-loving Korean mother and Black father, Myers ultimately found his rhythm in the poetics of itinerant musicians of the 1930s and 1940s. This poetry sharpened his musical interest, especially in the Blues.
His debut album, Yellow Peril, is full of jumpy blues songs about hopping trains, burning up highways, running from some danger but also running toward something harder to define and even harder to catch. Full of intelligence and soul, contradiction and nuance, these songs reflect his restlessness and wanderlust in their fleet riffs, complex rhythms, and quick tempos.
Myers will share the stage with Milwaukee native, Carl “Buffalo” Nichols, wants to ‘bring the blues of the past into the future.’ He asserts, “I tried to reimagine the blues…as if it were allowed to grow and progress uninterrupted, uncolonized and ungentrified,”. His new album, Fatalist was released in September 2023 where he does surprising things with the Blues.
Experience in this Experimental Blues concert the way Myers and Nichols draw from a variety of stylistic strains and challenges the genre.
More on Nat Myers. gnatmyers.com
More on Buffalo Nichols: https://www.buffalo-nichols.com
PURCHASE TICKETS
Single Tickets: $10 General / $5 Students, Seniors (60+), & children 12 & under.
Blues Bundle: $64 General. The Blues Bundle includes Experimental Blues (February & April) events and both Mainstage Blues events.
Seating in our popular, intimate Performance Penthouse is limited; purchase your tickets today!