FOLK/Artists Warner Williams & Jay Summerour

Editor’s Note: The following piece is one in a series of short stories profiling performers featured in the National Folk Festival Aug. 22-24 in Bangor.

For harmonica player Jay Summerour, defining the type of blues that he and guitarist Warner Williams play is easy. “A lot of people play the Chicago-style blues, big-band blues, like the Nighthawks and Stevie Ray Vaughn, more up-tempo stuff. Ours is more down-home, rotgut music, like country music, more like you hear down South.”

Known more formally as Piedmont blues, the music of Summerour and Williams is a gritty mix of genres including Delta and Texas blues, country and ragtime. For nearly 16 years, Summerour and Williams have helped keep the Piedmont tradition alive by playing at local clubs and regional blues festivals such as the National Folk Festival.

“It’s like music that people don’t think about. People thought it was going to be a lost art, but it’s not. There’s still a couple Piedmont blues players around,” Summerour explained.

The 53-year-old said that after playing in various bands, including some successful years spent with the Starland Vocal Band, he was drawn back to Piedmont blues because it’s what he grew up listening to.

“[Piedmont] is all I ever heard when I was little because my grandfather played it. I was too young to be running the streets. I was like 4 or 5 years old,” Summerour said with a laugh, “and that’s what I had to listen to when it came to live music.”

Summerour said that he hopes to pass on his interest in Piedmont and other blues styles to another generation by holding workshops and visiting schools near his home in Maryland. “I love my music,” he said. “I don’t want it to be lost.”

? By George Bragdon

Warner Williams and Jay Summerour will perform at noon and 6:30 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 23, at the Two Rivers Stage, 3:30 p.m. at the Railroad Stage and at 5 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 24, at the Two Rivers Stage.