Cephas & Wiggins and Bettye LaVette treated festivalgoers Friday night to a history of the blues in back-to-back performances on the Penobscot Stage.

John Cephas and Phil Wiggins revealed the roots of the blues that cling to the dark dirt deep down in the Piedmont region of the nation’s southeast coast and the Mississippi River Delta, while LaVette showed off the luscious fruit that’s matured on the branches sustained by that rich soil.

The 74-year-old Cephas deftly demonstrated the three-finger picking Piedmont style on his guitar for the first half of the nearly hour-long set, then switched to the note-bending, strumming of the Delta.

Younger by two decades than the guitarist, Wiggins created on his harmonica a background chorus that wailed, moaned, cried and screamed with whatever sorrow or ecstasy the song required because as his partner pointed out, “There’s a blues for every occasion.”

Wiggins’ mouth organ gave way to LaVette’s raspy voice that captured the anguish and the rapture of a life steeped in the blues. Billed as “the blues singer you’ve never heard of,” she pranced and strutted to every nook and cranny of the stage.

Backed by a tight, four-piece band that supported rather than led the Detroit-born rhythm and blues singer, LaVette’s versatile voice floated over the audience. The pain and misery along with the bliss and delight woven into the lyrics of the blues fell over the audience like a velvet rain.

“This is as close to heaven as I’ll get,” the almost 60-year-old LaVette wailed toward the end of her set.