David Vest – Sunday February 19 2012

David Vest (Solo Piano)
Sunday February 19, 2012 – 7pm
Tickets $30.00 

he’d have missed performing with Big Joe Turner and with Bill

Black’s Combo in the early 1960s, touring with blues legends

Jimmy T99 Nelson and Lavelle White, and receiving the direct

“laying on of hands” from Texas piano titans like Floyd Dixon and

Big Walter the Thunderbird. After one performance in a Houston

juke joint, a woman David hadn’t met threw her arms around him

and shouted for all to hear, “My name is Katie Webster, and I

knows it when I hears it!”

Audiences far and wide appear to agree. As one west coast

nightclub manager put it, “Last month, we saw the first

performance from David Vest at Jimmy Mak’s. We knew very little

of him, except that he was an old-school boogie-woogie pianist.

Well folks, that was a massive understatement. David Vest is the

Original Boogie-Woogie Starchild!”

David’s obvious influences include Memphis Slim, Champion

Jack Dupree, and Amos Milburn. Although he’s a bluesman to the

bone, his playing also reminds people of early Fats Domino and

Jerry Lee Lewis, which is probably inevitable given his origins.

His style owes a little something to jazz icon Sun Ra, another

Birmingham native.

A tireless advocate of Alabama’s place in blues history, David

also shares an unlikely connection with country legend Tammy

Wynette. In fact, he occupies “a significant place in her story,”

according to her latest biographer, since he was “the first

musician who recorded her and recognized her originality.”

His years co-fronting the Paul deLay Band introduced him to

legions of blues fan, especially in the Pacific northwest, and he

has appeared at many major festivals. He holds a number of

Muddy Awards (including “Best Keyboard Player”) from the

Cascade Blues Society.

His CDs include “Rock a While” (his latest), “Way Down Here,”

“Serve Me Right to Shuffle,” and “The Last of the Best” (with the

Paul deLay Band).

David now makes his home in Canada (on Vancouver Island) and

plans to keep on rockin’ and shoutin’ the blues “as long as the

flavor lasts.”