John Cephas and Phil Wiggins discuss the Piedmont blues style

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John Cephas and Phil Wiggins discuss the Piedmont blues style

The Piedmont blues is a type of blues music distinguished by a unique finger-picking method on the guitar. The Piedmont blues was born in the Piedmont area on the East Coast of the USA, which stretches from about Richmond, Virginia, to Atlanta, Georgia. Yet Piedmont blues musicians come from surrounding areas as well, such as Maryland, Delaware, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Florida. Renowned Piedmont blues musicians John Cephas and Phil Wiggins met at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in the late 1970s and have been playing Piedmont blues together ever since. Here they discuss the origins of the East Coast Piedmont blues and showcase their style. [Catalog No. - CFV10051; Copyright - 2006 Smithsonian Institution]

4 min 57 sec

culture music performance tradition folk language festival smithsonian "washington dc"