As part of the Abingdon All-American Independence Day Extravaganza! Jarekus Singleton & Steady Rollin’ Bob Margolin bring the Blues to Red, White & Blue on July 2nd, in downtown Abingdon at the Abingdon Market Pavilion. This event is a collaboration between Abingdon Music Experience, Parks & Recreation & Abingdon Main Street.
The day’s festivities will begin at 4pm, celebrating Abingdon’s rich Revolutionary War history, with living historians & the Fife & Drum Corps on site. Activities include a Block Party with a foam pit and DJ, kid’s crafts sponsored by Paper Moon Studio, food trucks & beer garden. The evening will end with live music beginning at 6, and a firework finale visible from the pavilion at 9:15pm.
Please note: This event REPLACES all Independence Day activities at the Coome’s Center. There will be NO fireworks at the Rec Center, all activities are now centered in downtown Abingdon at the Abingdon Market Pavilion.
Steady Rollin’ Bob Margolin 6:00-7:30pm
Boston native BOB MARGOLIN was born in 1949. Inspired by Chuck Berry, he started playing guitar at age 15 and immediately started performing in local rock and blues bands. Margolin was hired by Muddy Waters in 1973.
Muddy’s band toured the world and jammed with many great blues and rock musicians, “but the biggest thrill was playing Muddy’s Blues with him.” Muddy brought Margolin with him to special shows and recordings, when he sometimes didn’t use his whole band, to give him a familiar sound when working with other musicians. In 1975, they recorded Grammy Award-winning “Muddy Waters Woodstock Album”, Muddy’s last for Chess Records, which featured Paul Butterfield, and Levon Helm and Garth Hudson from The Band. In ‘76, Muddy brought Margolin with him to San Francisco to perform at The Band’s “Last Waltz” concert. Martin Scorcese filmed the concert for the classic film. “As it happened, only one camera was operating during our performance, zooming in or out, and since I was standing right next to Muddy, I was in every shot while he sang a powerful ‘Mannish Boy.’” Margolin also played on the four albums that Muddy recorded for Blue Sky Records, which were produced by Johnny Winter, and with Johnny on his Nothin’ But The Blues album. Three of those albums won Grammy Awards.
Margolin left Muddy’s band in 1980 and formed his own band. He relocated to Washington, DC then Blacksburg, Virginia — eventually winding up North Carolina in 1989. “All through the ‘80s I ran up and down the highways, mostly in Virginia and North Carolina. I was able to make a living without the pressures of the music business, and didn’t even feel any need to release an album. I was playing most nights with total musical freedom and no commercial considerations.” Periodically during those years, Margolin played a few high profile gigs — He appeared at the 1984 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, joining The Fabulous Thunderbirds for a tribute to Muddy Waters (with Etta James singing, and Taj Mahal and James Cotton opening.) His own band opened shows for Stevie Ray Vaughan, George Thorogood, Johnny Winter, and The T-Birds.
Bob Margolin’s has played on several Grammy-winning recordings, won numerous W.C. Handy/Blues Music Awards for his playing and is a KBA Award recipient for Journalism. [In the early ’90s, Margolin began a second career as a music writer. In 2011, he released an eBook featuring the best of his writing — “Steady Rollin’ – Blues Stories, Snapshots, (Intentional) Blues Fiction.] He’s produced albums for numerous artists including Muddy’s son Big Bill Morganfield, Candye Kane, Pinetop Perkins, Mac Arnold, Ann Rabson and produced and consulted on reissues of Muddy Waters’ recordings for the Blue Sky Label for Sony/Legacy.
Jarekus Singleton 7:45-9:15pm
“High-energy, rock-tinged and tough…a winning blend of modern-day blues and emotionally intense soul with melodic, hot-toned lead guitar, funk-seasoned rhythms and hip-hop flavored lyrics. Singleton creates unpredictable and challenging music that sounds both firmly rooted in blues tradition and fearlessly dedicated to breaking boundaries and blazing new paths.” —Living Blues
At just 30 years old, Jarekus Singleton is a musical trailblazer with a bold vision for the future of the blues. Springing from the same Mississippi soil as Charley Patton, Muddy Waters and B.B. King, Singleton’s cutting-edge sound—equally rooted in rap, rock and blues traditions—is all his own. He melds hip-hop wordplay, rock energy and R&B grooves with contemporary and traditional blues, turning audiences of all ages into devoted fans. With his untamed guitar licks and strong, soulful voice effortlessly moving from ferocious and funky to slow and steamy to smoking hot, Singleton is a fresh, electrifying bluesman bursting at the seams with talent.
Singleton’s Alligator debut, Refuse To Lose, features a scintillating guitar attack and lyrically startling original songs all sung with a natural storyteller’s voice. Produced by Singleton along with Alligator Records president Bruce Iglauer and recorded at PM Music in Memphis, the album is an impossible-to-ignore first step onto the world stage. With songs telling real life, streetwise (sometimes funny) stories brimming with surprising images, pop culture references, infectious rhythms and unexpected musical twists, Refuse To Lose unleashes a new wave of blues for a new generation of fans.
Abingdon Music Experience 