E9578 - Cephas and Wiggins: Piedmont Blues From DC Jam Sessions to the Soviet Union

John Cephas was born in 1930 and raised in Bowling Green, Virginia; Phil Wiggins was born in 1954 in Washington, DC. Separated by 24 years, they met at a 1976 jam session at the Smithsonian's Festival of American Folklife and, after an incubation period in pianist Big Chief Ellis's band, decided to continue as an acoustic guitar and harmonica duo. This episode breaks down what Piedmont blues actually is, with the thumb holding a ragtime-style bass line while the fingers pick a syncopated melody, and how Wiggins's harmonica functioned like a horn section weaving through Cephas's fingerpicking.

We follow the duo...