FOLK/Music Cephas & Wiggins, Piedmont blues

Friday: 8 p.m. Penobscot; Saturday: 2 p.m. Penobscot, 6:20 p.m. Two Rivers; Sunday: noon Railroad

John Cephas and Phil Wiggins are masters of the Piedmont blues, which is rooted in the music of black string bands of Colonial America and is the oldest form of the blues.

Enslaved Africans in the earliest black string bands combined the wood and gourd African banjo with the European violin to create ensemble forms that are at the base of several types of popular American music. Many songs from these string bands survive in Piedmont blues, but their most important legacy is a passionate and richly melodic performance style that remains acoustic a half-century after other blues went electric.

Also called “East Coast” or “Tidewater,” this older style can still be heard among traditional blues players from the eastern Maryland shore to the Gulf Coast. This regional American music takes its name from the Piedmont foothills, which stretch from Virginia to Florida. Important early Piedmont blues musicians include Blind Boy Fuller, Reverend Gary Davis, and Sonny Terry. Their influence can be heard in the repertoire and technique of Cephas & Wiggins.

Guitarist and singer John Cephas was born in 1930 in Washington, D.C., where he was raised in a religious musical environment. He also spent considerable time at his grandpa’s place in rural Caroline County, Va. It was there, where playing the blues was a competitive pastime among the community’s young men, that he learned the three-finger picking of the Piedmont style.

Phil Wiggins was attracted to the Piedmont blues as a young man growing up in Washington, D.C., where he played harmonica with many local masters of the style. Today, he is regarded as a world-class player on this humble instrument.

Cephas and Wiggins began playing together shortly after they met at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in 1976. Wiggins, only 22 at the time, was playing at the festival with the legendary street singer Flora Moulton; Cephas was performing with Wilber “Big Chief” Ellis. The sound they put together is incomparable, with Wiggins’ seemingly boundless stream of harmonica pyrotechnics weaving through Cephas’ intricate picking and warm, rich singing.

In recognition of his mastery of Piedmont blues guitar and singing, Cephas was named a National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellow in 1989. The duo has performed all over the world and received many honors, including two W.C. Handy Awards for Best Traditional Blues Album and Blues Entertainer of the Year. Through their passion for the Piedmont blues, Cephas & Wiggins have ensured the continuing popularity of this uniquely American music.