Bluesman and storyteller Spencer Bohren is planning an entire concert based around one song—and Bohren is one of the few who can make such a concept interesting. The show and the song are “Down the Dirt Road Blues,” happening at the Old U.S. Mint Thurday, May 30 at 8 p.m. Using a “veritable arsenal of vintage instruments,” Bohren will trace how the song evolved from its arrival to America in the hold of a slave ship, into the era of slavery, to early progress in integration, through the Great Migration, the beginnings of the recording industry and the birth of rock ‘n’ roll (a version of the song also found its way into the Rolling Stones’ repertoire). The song remains the same, but the style and context cover the full history of American music.
Spencer Bohren's "Down The Dirt Road Blues" original pressing.
Bohren has a long career as a solo artist, a string player (his latest CD, Tempered Steel, is devoted to the lap steel), and as a songwriter (among his tunes is “Straight Eight,” a longtime Radiators standard). But he’s also delved into music history, and “Down the Dirt Road Blues” may be his most ambitious project. First released as a CD in 2005, it became a performance piece that he’s presented to thousands of grade-school students, and it earned him a 2010 Keeping the Blues Alive Award from the Blues Foundation in Memphis. As he told OffBeat at the time, “Kids aren’t used to seeing real music played by a real person. It really intrigues them.” He’s also presented it at the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee, and Sirius XM Radio studios in Washington, DC. This will be the first time he’s done it in New Orleans.
Along with playing every possible version of the “Dirt Road” song, Bohren will show how it was transformed as it passed through 400 years of players, cultures and settings. As he says, the story also “taps into the human need to tinker with and update the guitar to be better heard.”
Spencer Bohren presents “Down the Dirt Road Blues” at the Old U.S. Mint, 400 Esplanade Ave, on Thursday, May 30 at 8 p.m. Tickets are $12. Information at (504) 568-2022.
