hancockAcoustic Blues Revue coming to gazebo

Guitarists Wendy Keith and Skip Philbrick will join forces as Acoustic Blues Revue, playing on the common at the Hancock Gazebo July 25 from 6 to 7:30 p.m. They’ll be accompanied by Ramsey Thomas on stand-up bass and Brian Quinn on drums.

The show is part of Hancock’s Thursday night summer concert series.

Longtime members of the Monadnock folk and blues scene, Keith and Philbrick played together many years ago. They are reuniting for a set of songs from both of their repertoires of blues and acoustic music, drawing from vintage Bonnie Raitt, Taj Mahal, BB King, Ray Charles and Lucinda Williams, among others.

Philbrick has been championing the art of America’s original music in the New England area since he formed his first band, called the Trojans, at the age of 13 in Milford. In the 1970s and 1980s, he lived in Providence and played with three different bands throughout the New England area. In 1986, he got the call from blues legend Luther “Guitar Jr.” Johnson to join his band. He spent the next three years touring with Johnson throughout the United States and Canada. While Johnson wasn’t on tour, Philbrick kept himself busy cultivating the blues at the Rynborn in Antrim, a relationship that lasted for 18 years before the club closed in 2005.

Philbrick has played with or opened for artists such Otis Rush, Pinetop Perkins, Duke Robillard, Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, Magic Slim and Bo Diddley. He still regularly performs with his group, The Skip Philbrick Blues Band, in and around southern New Hampshire.

Keith has been singing and playing in the region since moving from the Boston area in the late 1970s. In recent years, she has often performed locally with the group Wendy Keith and her Alleged Band. She has played at the Folkway, the Colonial Theatre and many other venues.

Thomas has played with The Folksoul Band, Tara Greenblatt and others. He stated, “In the late 1960s I began on piano and my first music teacher was a strict, German woman in her 70s. I was excited to play her a Robert Johnson 12-bar blues piece I loved. But about five seconds into it she slammed the keyboard cover down on my fingers and screamed ‘You will never play this music in my presence again!’ I was hooked.”

Quinn has become a local go-to drummer for bands in a variety of genres. He most recently played in Hancock with Paul Klemperer in a jazz ensemble at one of the Thursday night concerts.