Coming from a musically gifted family, Aurora Rory Block took up classical guitar at age 10 and taught herself folk styles to accompany her fiddle-playing father at festivals and clubs, where she had the unprecedented opportunity to meet and play music with such blues greats as Son House, Reverend Gary Davis, Mississippi John Hurt, Skip James, Bukka White and Mississippi Fred McDowell. On her own since the early 1970s, through nearly two dozen albums and an almost constant touring schedule throughout the United States and Europe, Rory has become one of the world's most important preservers of the roots of American music, and a national treasure as an uncompromising mature blues artist. Her 1995 album, When a Woman Gets the Blues (Rounder) won the W. C. Handy Award for Best Acoustic Blues Album of the Year, as did her 1999 effort, Confessions of a Blues Singer, and Rory won the Handy award for Traditional Blues Female Artist of the Year for both 1997 and 1998. Tonight she performs old favorites as well as songs from her recently released album, I'm Every Woman (Rounder). |