[ blues ]
It’s not your imagination: Paul Geremia really has been playing the blues on the coffeehouse circuit since the ’60s. It started with the Newport Folk Festival in his native Rhode Island in 1963. “I saw [Mississippi] John Hurt in a workshop,” he recalls, “and the next year was really big for the blues at Newport — Sleepy John Estes, Yank Rachell, Skip James.” Geremia watched hard whenever he could. “I couldn’t afford even a $10 lesson with the old guys like some of the others could,” but by 1966, Geremia had taught himself enough to charm audiences at the Second Fret and the Main Point. He hadn’t intended the blues to be his only career, but what day job could compete? All this time, the recipe remains the same. “I still play a combo of old blues and originals. I get as much pleasure out of playing the traditional stuff as I do the originals,” he says. “I never know what I’m going to do, I just get on the stage and play what I feel like playing.”
Fri., Oct. 12, 8 p.m., $20-$25, Psalm Salon, 5841 Overbrook Ave., 215-477-7578, psalmsalon.com.
