1 week Ago By Contributed Report
Birchwood’s 2023 album, "Exorcist," is his fourth Alligator Records release. The young guitarist, lap steel player, songwriter and vocalist sets a course for the future of the blues with his visionary, original music. He calls it “Electric Swamp Funkin’ Blues,” an intoxicating mix of deep blues, blistering, psychedelic-tinged rock, booty-shaking funk and sweet Southern soul, played and sung with fire-and-brimstone fervor.
Tastemaker Americana music magazine No Depression says, “Selwyn Birchwood reaches back in the blues tradition to launch something out of this world.” The Gateway to the Sequoias Blues Festival is set for 11 a.m.
to 5 p.m. Saturday, May 17, 2025, at the Lions Club Roping Arena, 42490 N.
Kaweah River Dr. in Three Rivers, California. Tickets are $30 advance / $35 gate / children under 12 free with paid adult.
for more, visit www.nabluesfest.com .
On "Exorcist," he delivers the most far-reaching, musically adventurous album of his career. Recorded in Florida and produced by Grammy Award-winner Tom Hambridge, each of the 13 vividly detailed songs was written and arranged by Birchwood. The soul-baring tracks all hit with lasting rhymes and unexpected rhythms.
Each twists its own tale, ranging from the love-gone-wrong "Horns Below Her Halo" to the love-gone-terrifying "Exorcist" to the autobiographical "Underdog." According to Blues Music Magazine, “Selwyn Birchwood heralds a fresh, exciting new direction in the blues. Toe-tapping, hip-shaking, joyful and inviting.
..expansive and focused, exploratory and time-honored, but always original.
” Live, Birchwood is a force of nature. His ability to win over an audience—any audience—is proven night after night on the bandstand. With his warm, magnetic personality, Birchwood is as down-to-earth as his music is thought-provoking and electrifying, with Birchwood's band featuring the pulsating interplay of his blistering guitar with Regi Oliver’s driving baritone sax.
When he sits down to play his lap steel, he takes the crowd to a whole other level, with the music exorcising any bad times and troubles..
