When Portland blues guitarist Terry Robb returns May 4 to one of his favorite haunts, Ridgefield’s Old Liberty Theater, he’ll bring a unique out-of-town guest with a cool Vancouver connection.
Hawaiian native Jeff Peterson is considered one of the giants of the slack-key guitar, that extra-smooth, extra-sweet fingerstyle that’s as lush and open and pretty as the Hawaiian islands themselves. The slack-key sound draws on everything from indigenous Hawaiian chants and dances to Spanish guitar styles to catchy modern pop; Peterson has added his own special classical and jazz flavors, too.
The son of a guitar-playing Hawaiian paniolo (cowboy), Peterson studied classical guitar at the University of Southern California, then returned to Maui, where he teaches and records.
“As long as you have that connection to … the people who came before, the music can move forward in a way that’s still culturally rooted,” he says in a video on his website. In 2016, Peterson was commissioned to compose the world’s first classical “Concerto for Slack Key Guitar and Orchestra” by the Raleigh Civic Chamber Orchestra in North Carolina. He’s been featured on Grammy-winning anthologies of Hawaiian guitar music; if you saw the 2011 Hawaii-family-drama “The Descendants,” starring George Clooney, you heard five Peterson pieces.
If You Go
What: Guitarists Terry Robb (Delta blues, from Portland) and Jeff Peterson (slack-key, from Hawaii).
When: 7:30 p.m. May 4.
Where: Old Liberty Theater, 115 N. Main Ave., Ridgefield.
Tickets: $25.
Box office: 360-887-7260.
On the web: TerryRobb.com, JeffPetersonGuitar.com, OldLibertyTheater.com.
Peterson is on tour promoting his latest release, “Ka Nani O Ki Ho’alu, The Beauty of Slack Key Guitar.”
What’s the Vancouver connection? In 2018, Peterson won a $20,000 National Artist Fellowship from the Native Arts & Cultures Foundation, which is headquartered in the historic Providence Academy building on East Evergreen Boulevard. The Native Arts & Cultures Foundation promotes the growth and preservation of indigenous cultures by supporting American Indian, Native Hawaiian and Alaska Native artists of all kinds.
Robb’s blues
Hawaii, meet the Delta. Peterson shares the bill with Terry Robb, a Pacific Northwest guitar hero whose acoustic instrument is similar, but whose vibe is deeply different. Robb is a veteran bluesman whose new album, “Confessin’ My Dues,” enlists Vancouver drummer Gary Hobbs and Portland bassist Dave Captein and draws on everything from Coltrane to Hendrix and ragtime to country.
“Sonically, I wanted the album to be both intimate and powerful,” Robb said. “I wanted a modern take on familiar themes without leaving tradition behind.”
“There are not many guitarists in the blues or any genre … that are as detailed and clever with their creativity,” said Greg Johnson, president of the Cascade Blues Association. After Robb won the Blues Association’s acoustic guitar “Muddy Award” 19 times consecutively, the award was renamed the “Terry Robb Acoustic Guitar Muddy Award.”
May 4 at the Old Liberty, Robb and Peterson will play separate, solo sets in their different genres, then come together for a dynamic finale.
