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PIANIST PLAYS GULF COAST BLUES
 MELODIC RURAL FOLK: George Winston belts out a tune for hurricane relief. He will perform in concert at McKenzie Theatre Wednesday. (Submitted photo). LA GRANDE - George Winston, best known for his melodic rural folk piano style, has made no secret of the debt his playing owes to the musicians of New Orleans. Winston will appear in concert at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday in McKenzie Theatre. The show is a fundraiser for the Community School of the Arts at EOU. Those attending are asked to bring a canned food item to donate for the Salvation Army Food Bank. Tickets $20 general, $10 students are available at Sunflower Books or online at www.eou.edu/csa. Tickets will also be sold at the door at $5 higher. "Gulf Coast Blues & Impressions A Hurricane Relief Benefit" was inspired by Winston's desire to support the Gulf Coast after the recent hurricane-related devastation. This region has a mystique all its own. He has been to it many times, from Corpus Christi to New Orleans, to Gulfport/Biloxi/Bay St. Louis to to Naples. Winston cites the pianists of New Orleans as the biggest influences on his own piano playing. He will donate all his artist royalties from the album to organizations involved in helping those on the Gulf Coast and in New Orleans to rebuild and return organizations such as Common Ground (www.commongroundrelief.org) and ACORN (www.acorn.org). In unity with the artist, RCA Records will be donating the bulk of its net profits to benefit musicians in the New Orleans area. "Gulf Coast Blues & Impressions" features six Winston compositions inspired by the Gulf Coast as well as pieces written by or influenced by six of the greatest New Orleans pianists: Henry Butler, James Booker, Professor Longhair, Dr. John, Allen Toussaint and Jon Cleary. "Much of my work on the piano is studying the musical languages of the great New Orleans R&B pianists," Winston says. "Especially Professor Longhair, the founder of the New Orleans R&B piano scene in the late 1940s who inspired so many; James Booker, whose language most influences the way I think of playing; and Henry Butler, who is the pianist I have studied the most since 1985. "I'm also indebted to New Orleans pianists Dr. John, Jon Cleary and the eminent composer/pianist Allen Toussaint." James Booker's "Pixie" lives up to its title with a treatment that features syncopated phrases in the right hand and Booker's trademark moving bass line and partial chords in the left hand. "James Booker was the first one to take R&B, soul music, the Blues, New Orleans music and more, to make a solo piano style that encompassed seven different ways of playing," Winston says. Henry Butler's complex composition "The Breaks" is full of dramatic chords and flurries. Says Winston: "Henry is the pianist I have been studying the most since I first heard him in 1985. In my view he has taken R&B piano to its pinnacle, and he is the only pianist I know of who plays the deep blues and R&B and mainstream jazz. "You need to see him live to fully experience his music." |
