Ben & Joe Live at Mist
Potluck: 5 - 7pm
First Set of Music: 7 - 8pm
2nd Set of Music: 8:15 - 9pm
Ben Hunter and Joe Seamons have been performing American roots music together since 2010. They combine banjo, fiddle, harmonica and bones, guitar and mandolin, and harmony vocals in combination across a range of original and traditional music spanning blues, folk, jazz, gospel and novelty songs. Hunter, born in the African nation of Lesotho and raised in Phoenix, Arizona, is a classically trained violinist who studied music around the world. Seamons interprets the Pacific Northwest folk music that surrounded him as her grew up in Columbia County, Oregon. Now based in Seattle, they are co-founders of the Rhapsody Project, a community organization dedicated to building community and celebrating heritage through music. Bringing together people across generational and cultural divides, they help regular folks, especially the youth, to understand that America’s roots music is not a relic, but a thriving tradition. It’s not only about the fantastical, deeply mysterious recordings that we can all hear now on records or online. Their community celebrates music as a playground for the imagination with no barriers to entry.
With the same versatility that won them the International Blues Challenge in 2016, and allowed them to record with National Heritage Fellow Phil Wiggins, the duo celebrates the ways Americans have triumphed over oppression through the vitality of their art. Audiences walk away from Ben & Joe’s concerts and workshops inspired to learn more of their own history, and engage more deeply with their communities.
Learn more and hear them at www.benjoemusic.com