Duke Performances in collaboration with Hayti Heritage Center presents

Otis Taylor, Don Vappie & Corey Harris
Recapturing the Banjo
Thursday, January 22, 8 pm, Page Auditorium

Blues visionary Taylor is pursuing a radical project: to reclaim the lost history of an American instrument. With a MacArthur prize winning bluesman (Harris) and a jazz banjo virtuoso (Vappie), he reasserts the black roots of an instrument too long associated with white culture. In performance, these masters enmesh tales of African-American life—“Ran So Hard the Sun Went Down,” and Jimi Hendrix’s “Hey Joe”—in the shifting chord changes of the banjo blues.

“The banjo has become so closely associated with folk singers and bluegrass players. Over the years, the instrument just lost touch with its roots, and I’m just trying to re-establish that connection.”
—Otis Taylor

Tickets are $34, $26, $18, $5* and can be purchased at Duke Box Office (919) 684-4444, www.dukeperformances.org or www.tickets.duke.edu or at the Hayti Heritage Center, 804 Old Fayetteville Street, (919) 683-1709.

Or go to: http://dukeperformances.duke.edu/programs/shufflepick/taylor.php