Institute of Musical Traditions

Bluesworks

Friday October 4th,
6:00 - 8:00 PM (rain or shine) at the Takoma Park Gazebo

Native Washingtonian Paul Watson is a blues harp player, singer, and songwriter, whose playing favors country and Chicago blues with a little jazz thrown in for extra measure. He also plays mandolin in the string band tradition. He has shared the stage with the legendary Pinetop Perkins, Saffire--the Uppity Blues Women, West Virginian Bluesman Nat Reese and, National Heritage Artist Howard Armstrong. Paul's mastery of blues harp has made him a sought-out session recording artist. He has taught blues harp and performed at the award-winning Augusta Heritage Workshops' blues program in West Virginia. Paul was a featured musician at the theater production of The Greasy Envelope and at Leaving the Summer Land, a new play with music inspired by The Migration Series by Jacob Lawrence.

Judy Luis-Watson grew up in a family of musicians in Tanzania, East Africa. Playing by ear and studying piano as a child, she began performing in the late '60s with her sister as a piano-percussion-vocal duo. Over the years, she has performed a variety of musical genres. At Carnegie Hall's 1992 Folk Festival, she performed Southern African folk songs with Nomonde Ngubo. Since 1991, she has teamed up with Gaye Adegbalola (of Saffire: the Uppity Blues Women), providing piano accompaniment for blues vocals at the Augusta Heritage Workshops in West Virginia and other events. Judy plays piano on Gaye's educational video, "Learning to Sing the Blues," produced by Homespun Tapes in 1997. She teaches blues piano privately and has taught at the Swannanoa Gathering in North Carolina. Judy was nominated in 1991 by the DC Commission on the Arts for a Mayor's Arts Award.

Mark Puryear performed at the 1982 Smithsonian's Festival of American Folklife and at the World's Fair in Knoxville, Tennessee that same year with a band led by blues harp player Charlie Sayles. In the late '80s, Mark performed jazz, blues and popular music in Micronesia on the islands of Truk and Saipan. In recent years, he has performed and conducted guitar workshops at events sponsored by the DC Blues Society. Mark has toured and worked with BluesWorks since 1995.

Paul and Judy formed BluesWorks in 1991. They have produced several recordings including their debut CD Far From Home. They have recorded with other artists and may also be heard on Augusta Heritage Workshops' sampler recordings. A multimedia presentation, The Blues Connection: The Music, Stories, and Pictures of Legendary Blues Artists and their interactive program, Blues Songs and Rhythms for Kids are two of their educational creations.