Renowned Guitarist Tab Benoit on ‘Whiskey Bayou Revue’ Tour
Comes To Sainte Rocke, Only Southern California Appearance
Wednesday, October 23 – Showtime: 8pm – Tickets: $35.00
Renowned Louisiana blues guitarist Tab Benoit continues his year-long ‘Whiskey Bayou Revue’ Tour (named for Benoit’s Louisiana-based record label), with his only Southern California appearance at Sainte Rocke, 142 Pacific Coast Highway, Hermosa Beach, CA on Wednesday, October 23. Showtime is 8:00pm. General Admission Tickets are $35.00. Info: (310) 372-0035 or visit https://www.saintrocke.com.
Tab Benoit is one of the most impressive guitarists to emerge from the rich Bayous of Southern Louisiana in recent years. This three-time Grammy nominee and four-time Blues Music Award winner for “Entertainer of the year” and five-time “Contemporary Male” Blues Music Award winner, performs at Sainte Rock in Hermosa Beach, CA on Oct. 23rd. This is a show you don’t want to miss. The legendary Tab Benoit is beloved for his live shows, his outstanding guitar chops, and soulful voice.
Benoit’s Whiskey Bayou Review includes established artists such as Eric Johanson, Eric McFadden, Damon Fowler, Jeff McCarty and more.
Benoit, who’s always been known for his environmental activism, just performed two nights last weekend in his hometown of Houma, Louisiana at the 16th Annual Voice of the Wetlands Festival. He also appears prominently in the iMax motion picture Hurricane on the Bayou, a documentary of Hurricane Katrina’s effects and a call to protect and restore the Wetlands, and produced a CD to help restore that state’s Coastal Wetlands.
Born on November 17, 1967, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Tab Benoit grew up in the nearby oil and fishing town of Houma, where he still resides today. Musically, he was exposed early on to traditional Cajun waltzes and the country music broadcast on his hometown’s only radio station.
In the late 80’s Tab Benoit began hanging out at the Blues Box, a music club and cultural center in Baton Rouge run by guitarist Tabby Thomas. Playing guitar alongside Thomas, Raful Neal, Henry Gray and other high-profile regulars at the club, Benoit learned the blues first-hand from these living blues legends. He formed a trio in 1987 and began playing clubs in Baton Rouge and New Orleans.
In 1992 Benoit released his first recording Nice and Warm on the Justice Label. The title track became a AAA Radio hit and Benoit’s touring career kicked into high gear. Nice and Warm prompted comparisons to blues guitar heavyweights like Albert King, Albert Collins and even Jimi Hendrix. Tab began playing two-hundred and fifty shows a year, a schedule he has kept up for over twenty years. He recorded four albums for Justice Records before being signed to the Vanguard label, and became Louisiana’s Number One Blues export. Vanguard allowed Tab to produce his own recordings; Tab wanted to record the sound that he was trying to create and in 1999 Vanguard Records released These Blues Are All Mine.
Tab Benoit’s music evolved again after he signed with the Telarc International/Concord Music Group in 2002. He began to strip it down to a three-piece group, where he found more freedom as a guitarist. He was also on a mission to use his music and his energy to bring attention to Louisiana’s coastal erosion issues. Tab began to spend more time in the Wetlands and it was where he began to write his songs. Wetlands was the title of his first Telarc/Concord International release. The record combined many musical styles that are indigenous to Louisiana, while he began to play accordion lines and washboard on guitar. Wetlands was a mile marker that definitively marked Tab’s further musical progression into his own original sound and style.
Following the release of Wetlands in 2004 Benoit founded the “Voice of the Wetlands” non-profit organization (www.voiceofthewetlands.org) and began to use music and gather other musicians to use their platforms for getting the message out. He put together an all-star band that featured Cyril Neville, Anders Osborne, George Porter Jr, Big Chief Monk Boudreaux, Johnny Vidacovich, Johnny Sansone, and Waylon Thibodeaux that became The Voice of the Wetlands All-Stars. The Voice of the Wetlands All-Stars have released two CDs and occasionally tour throughout the country.
Benoit recently launched his own imprint, Whiskey Bayou Records, with partner and manager, Rueben Williams. The label has thus far released albums by such established artists as Eric McFadden, Damon Fowler, Eric Johanson, Jeff McCarty, and Dash Rip Rock. In 2019 Benoit hits the road for a major U.S. Tour, the Whiskey Bayou Revue, featuring Benoit and several of his label’s artists.
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