A singer and guitarist of smoldering intensity, Aurora "Rory" Block is the reigning monarch of the traditional country blues. One of the world's leading preservers of in the Mississippi Delta country blues tradition, the New York Blues & Jazz Society named her "a national treasure," and she is a five-time winner of the Blues Foundation W.C. Handy Blues Award.

Born into a musical family residing in New York City's Greenwich Village, Rory took up guitar at age 10. In the Village, she had the unprecedented opportunity to meet and play music with the many of the musicians at roots-level of American music, including 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, Rory has recorded more than two dozen albums and carries out an almost constant touring schedule.

Tonight Rory applies her fiery, haunting touch to original and traditional blues from her new CD, a tribute to Son House, Blues Walkin' Like a Man (Stony Plain). Recalling seeing the father of the Delta blues in New York at the age of 15, Rory comments: "Backstage at the Village Gate, Son House virtually radiated a golden light. As I watched him perform, rolling his head back, slamming the strings and almost choking on the intensity, I learned a deep lesson about the power of the music which became an inseparable part of me."