UpDate - Vol. 14, No. 36, Page 4
July 6, 1995
Blues artists on stage July 13

     Cephas and Wiggins, known as "The Ambassadors of the Blues," will
perform at 8 p.m., Thursday, July 13, in Loudis Recital Hall of the Amy E.
du Pont Music Building.
     The harmonica and guitar duo specializes in country blues-the
passionate, compelling musical tradition that arose in the American South
at the turn of the century. The duo's blues is the rural, acoustic sound,
rarely heard over the past few years.
     Recognizing the group's excellence and authenticity, the U.S. State
Department has taken them to Africa, South America and, most recently,
Russia, where it was in the first group of Americans to perform at the
Russian National Folk Festival in Moscow. The duo also has performed in
China, Italy, Australia and New Zealand.
     Cephas and Wiggins was recognized twice in 1987 at the eighth annual
W.C. Handy Awards-the international blues equivalent to the Oscar-when its
debut album, Dog Days of August, won Traditional Blues Album of the Year,
and the group was named Blues Entertainers of the Year. Cephas also has
been honored by the National Endowment for the Arts, which presented him
with a Heritage Fellowship Award in 1989.
     Urban acoustic bluesmen, Cephas and Wiggins teamed up in 1977 after
meeting at the Smithsonian National Folklife Festival. With harmonica and
guitar, the pair is uniquely able to exemplify the syntheses of African and
European elements that coexist in the blues. To them, the blues lyric is
the poetry of the African-American experience, and their concert
performance evokes life in the post-Reconstruction South. Hard work,
celebration, joy and struggle are all there.
     Tickets for the duo's Newark appearance will be available at the door
for $8 for the general public and $5 for UD faculty, staff, students and
senior citizens. For information, call 831-8741.