NATCHITOCHES – The Louisiana Folklife Center at Northwestern State University will present “A Life Spent Singing the Blues: A Music Informance with the Wayne ‘Blue’ Burns Band” on Saturday, June 20 at 2 p.m. at the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame and Northwest Louisiana History Museum at 800 Front St. in Natchitoches. The event is free and open to the public.
Dr. Shane Rasmussen, professor of English and director of the Louisiana Folklife Center at Northwestern State, will interview the band about the cultural significance of blues music in Louisiana. Their discussion will include songs performed by the band which will also perform at the 46th annual Natchitoches-NSU Louisiana Folklife Festival, to be held July 18 in air-conditioned Prather Coliseum on the NSU campus.
Burns has been playing music all his life. He is a world-famous bassist, but the blues guitar is his thing. A native of Lafayette, Burns credits Stanley Clarke and Marcus Miller as two of his favorite musical influences. He has performed with many artists but is most famous for nearly 20 years as bassist for Clifton Chenier, the King of Zydeco. He has also performed with Ernie K-Doe, The Larks, Betty Wright, Buckwheat and the Hitchhikers, Lil Buck Senegal, Jude Taylor, Nathan and the Zydeco Cha-Chas, Walter Junior, The RoadDoctor and a decade with C.J. Chenier, Clifton Chenier’s son. In his life-long career, Burns has performed in all 50 United States and around the world, including in South America, Europe, Asia, and Africa, and is one of the first African Americans to perform in East Berlin after the Wall came down. Burns’ proudest moment came in 1982 when he played bass on Clifton Chenier and the Red Hot Louisiana Band’s Grammy-winning album, “I’m Here!”
For more information, call the Louisiana Folklife Center at (318) 357-4332, email folklife@nsula.edu or go to www.nsula.edu/folklife/.
The event is sponsored by the Louisiana Folklife Center and the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame and Northwest History Museum and is in partnership with the City of Natchitoches. Support for the Festival is provided by grants from the Cane River National Heritage Area, Inc., the Louisiana Division of the Arts Decentralized Arts Fund Program, the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, the Natchitoches Historic District Development Commission, the Natchitoches Convention and Visitors Bureau, the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation, the Shreveport Regional Arts Council and the State of Louisiana.
The views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities.