Two-fisted piano playing, raucous boogie and emotional ballads will share the stage when Marcia Ball brings her blues to Seattle Thursday and Oct. 15, along with music from her Grammy-nominated “So Many Rivers” album.
Ball recently won two W.C. Handy Awards for contemporary blues album of the year and contemporary female blues artist of the year.
As a child, she heard Tin Pan Alley tunes and popular music; at 13, Ball discovered Irma Thomas’ blues.
After college, she set out for San Francisco but her car broke down, so she settled in Austin, Texas, performing progressive country music and studying New Orleans piano player Professor Longhair’s music, which set her direction.
Ball turned out many albums and, in 1997, did the three-divas-of-the-blues project with Tracy Nelson and her inspiration, Irma Thomas.
Since then she’s added to her Handy collection of awards and nominations, appeared in “Piano Blues,” a film directed by Clint Eastwood, and been praised coast-to-coast for her New Orleans style of playing, a boogie-rock-and-blues ear-snapping combination.
Emerald City Jug Band, Ron Dalton: It’s two-for-one at tonight’s concert in KSER radio’s Music at the Flying Pig series. Lynnwood singer-songwriter Dalton finished second in the 2004 songwriting contest at the Tumbleweed Music Festival in Richland. ECJB mixes roots, pop, swing, blues and jazz with jug-band music rising out of an arsenal of washboard, mop bucket, harmonica, kazoo and ukulele.
Mavis Staples: The gospel and soul legend celebrates her Alligator Records debut with music from “Have a Little Faith” during her Saturday concert in Seattle. She shared a Grammy nomination with Bob Dylan in the best pop collaboration with vocals category for their duet “Gotta Change My Way of Thinking.” Staples, along with her family’s Staples Singers (once called “God’s greatest hitmakers”), is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and is on VH1’s list of the 100 greatest women of rock and roll. She’s also appeared in several films and television shows.
Shape, Sufi and Soul: Songs of love and devotion continues the Global Rhythms series Wednesday in Seattle with music from three cultural traditions. Performers include Persian singer Hossein Omoumi, gospel singers from Seattle’s Goodwill Baptist Church, and the Northwest Sacred Harp Singers, practitioners of shape note singing, a traditional four-part a cappella song form heard in the film, “Cold Mountain.”
Where to hear it
Marcia Ball: 7:30 and 10 p.m. Thursday and Oct. 15, The Triple Door, 216 Union St., Seattle; $25; 206-838-4333, www.thetripledoor.net.
Jug Band Blues, Suburban Folk: 7:30 tonight, Flying Pig Brewing Co., 2929 Colby Ave., Everett; $5-$10 donation for musicians; 425-339-1393; all ages, no smoking.
Mavis Staples: 8 p.m. Saturday, The Triple Door, 216 Union St., Seattle; $32; 206-838-4333, www.thetripledoor.net.
Shape, Sufi and Soul: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Town Hall, 1119 Eighth St., Seattle; $13-18; www.ticketweb.com.
Where to hear it
Marcia Ball: 7:30 and 10 p.m. Thursday and Oct. 15, The Triple Door, 216 Union St., Seattle; $25; 206-838-4333, www.thetripledoor.net.
Jug Band Blues, Suburban Folk: 7:30 tonight, Flying Pig Brewing Co., 2929 Colby Ave., Everett; $5-$10 donation for musicians; 425-339-1393; all ages, no smoking.
Mavis Staples: 8 p.m. Saturday, The Triple Door, 216 Union St., Seattle; $32; 206-838-4333, www.thetripledoor.net.
Shape, Sufi and Soul: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Town Hall, 1119 Eighth St., Seattle; $13-18; www.ticketweb.com.
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