January 14, 2008                                                                                                                                               Associate Director of Marketing

                                                                                                                                                                               Phone: 253.573.2360

                                                                                                                                                                               Email: laceyl@broadwaycenter.org

Channeling the Sounds of an American Era in Music

Broadway Center for the Performing Arts presents

Chicago Blues Reunion: Featuring Corky Siegel, Barry Goldberg,

Harvey Mandel and Nick Gravenites

Sponsored by Safeco Insurance

Tacoma, WA –  Blues legends Corky Siegel, Barry Goldberg, Harvey Mandel and Nick Gravenites take the stage together with a performance as Chicago Blues Reunion on Saturday, January 19, 2008 at 7:30pm in Downtown Tacoma’s Pantages Theater.  See the legends that have influenced American Blues and some of the most famous performers of the twentieth century - such as Bob Dylan, John Lee Hooker, Steve Miller, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. 

Corky Siegel has earned an international reputation as one of the world's great blues harmonica masters. Siegel has written and performed works for Arthur Fiedler and the San Francisco Symphony, the Grant Park Symphony, the National Symphony Orchestra. His works have been featured in movies, television, and Olympic competitions. In addition to his Blues acumen, Siegel is a recent winner of the Lila Wallace/Reader's Digest/Meet the Composer's national award for chamber music composition and the Illinois Arts Council Fellowship Award for Music Composition. 

Barry Goldberg has written, produced and performed virtually every style and genre of music for all audiences with great success, and will add his talents on the Hammond B-3 organ. From performing with Bob Dylan when he first went electric, to work with the Ramones, Goldberg has been at the forefront of the music industry since the 1960’s. Goldberg’s contributions have received numerous awards; a Percy Sledge album he worked on was nominated for a Grammy® Award in 1996 for Best Blues Album of the Year, and won the W.C. Handy Award for Soul Album of the Year.   

Legendary guitar virtuoso Harvey Mandel, aka "The Snake," is a truly distinctive musician with his inventive style of electric guitar playing. A veteran of the Chicago Blues scene since the 1960’s, Mandel has worked with countless artists, including a special guest appearance on the Rolling Stones’ groundbreaking 1976 LP Black and Blue. Mandel and Rene Defourneaux, also share in the ownership of the production company and record label called Electric Snake Productions (ESP) based in Colorado. 

Nick “The Greek” Gravenites will round out the group with his vocals and guitar skills. While not necessarily well known outside Chicago, Gravenites has had a profound influence on the Blues genre. Rarely recorded as a soloist, Gravenites is better recognized for many of the songs he authored, including works for Janis Joplin, Otis Rush, and Paul Butterfield; he also contributed his considerable musical talents to their albums. He has worked on more than 45 albums as a guitarist, singer, songwriter or bandleader. 

Don Heckman of the Los Angeles Times raves that this is a group “whose roots reach back to the explosively creative Chicago South Side music scene of the late 1950s and early ‘60s…channeling the sounds of one of the great eras in American popular music.” 

Tickets are on sale now and are $24, $34, and $44. Tickets may be purchased at the Broadway Center Box Office located on 9th & Broadway, by phone at 253.591.5894, or anytime online at www.broadwaycenter.org.

The Broadway Center for the Performing Arts gratefully acknowledges the following for support of the 2007-2008 Season: ArtsFund, Ben B. Cheney Foundation, The Boeing Company, City of Tacoma, Forest Foundation, The News Tribune, Pierce County Arts Commission, Sequoia Foundation Pierce County Program and Washington State Arts Commission.

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