Jon Short
Live at Gilrein’s - Worcester MA
Saturday - February 6th, 2010
Originality and innovation may be shunned in Boston, but it is heartily embraced in Worcester. It may be the hardscrabble streets for a city still locked in the throes of the economic down turn, or that local blues musicians have forsaken Boston, a city and scene which has forsaken them, but there is a vibrant blues scene down in Worcester.
Leading this scene is ‘Mississippi’ Jon Short, a local Worcester musician currently in demand for both the “Blues in Schools” as well as garnering significant attention on the national level. Short combines an authentic roots style blues sound with pop quality vocal tone. In a just musical world, ‘Mississippi’ Jon Short should be garnering scads of radio airplay with his crossover appeal.
Alternating between Lowebow cigar-box hillharp (two string baritone didley bow), blues harp, resonator guitar, vocals and a hobo percussion section (leather suitcase kick drum, child’s plastic tambourine, and assorted nicknacks), Short consummate entertainer capable of breathing life into old standards, entertaining with his own material, as well as holding down polyrhythmic lines in order to fill out the one-man-band sound. The man can spin a story to the level some of the greats from the Mississippi Hill Country.
Short’s new release, “Have Blues, Will Travel” features “Asian Longhorned Beetle”, an amusing tale of the infestation of the trees around the city. You will find yourself singing along before you even realize the what you’re singing.
Short’s website is http://www.jonshort.com/, if you find yourself within the Worcester area or downstate New York, catch the man live. If you have kids, and want to raise them right, then advocate to your local PTA on the value of musical history by having Short bring his session to your kid’s school.
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