John Cephas RIP

[Michael Messer]

I am very sorry to announce that John Cephas died this morning. John was a great man and was known as the leading Piedmont style guitarist. My thoughts go out to John's family & friends.

Shine On
Michael.

[Deleted]

I met JC at a guitar seminar in NY in 2002 and he stayed on the same dorm room floor as me at Columbia University for the week long event. One of my fondest memories was him singing in the showers every morning in those locker room style community bathrooms. Can you imagine!? Old style howling blues bouncing off the tile walls in that big place! It's like you were living in a blues song! Better than coffee to get your musical mojo going. Great personality and love for music. RIP-

[thebluesbear( al)]

Hi
I saw john play a few times i am so very sorry to hear this .....very sorry indeed

al

[pascal]

I never met John Cephas, but his long time partnership with Phil Wiggins was a major influence for me in the mid 80's. I still remember me playing "Hey, Guitar man" that I learnt from their record.
Always a bluesman, John has also been a gospel singer, a carpenter and a fisherman before beeing a member of "Flora Molton's truth" blues band. He met Johnny Shines who watched their first jam cession at a Smithsonian blues festival.
He performed in many stage and documentaries blues productions. John has won a National heritage fellowship Award. He was a national american "living treasure".

[Michael Messer]

It is very sad indeed. I worked with John a couple of times and always enjoyed both his company and his music. His duo with Phil Wiggins was always superb. They played so well together.

Shine On
Michael.

[martinw]

That really is sad news. I well remember John from EBA a few summers ago - a really approachable guy with time for everyone.

Very sad loss.

[Deleted]

I met John from Blues Week (Northampton) a few years ago. Great player and really nice person. My fondest memory is when he sat near me one lunchtime & kept the whole table entertained with stories and answering our questions about his life as a blues player. Very sad.

[Michael Messer]

I found this obituary on the Alligator Records website;

PIEDMONT BLUES GUITARIST AND VOCALIST JOHN CEPHAS, 1930 - 2009

“Wonderfully rich vocals and jaunty acoustic guitar. Plenty of spirit and soul, humor and sorrow.” --The Washington Post

"Blues music is truth.” --John Cephas

Master blues guitarist and vocalist John Cephas died of natural causes on Wednesday, March 4, 2009. He was 78. Well known as one half of the award-winning Piedmont blues duo Cephas & Wiggins, John’s remarkable and delicate finger picking and rich, baritone vocals placed him firmly at the forefront of acoustic blues artists. John received a National Heritage Fellowship Award (often called the “Living Treasure Award”) in 1989. This is the highest honor the U.S. Government offers a traditional artist. Two weeks ago, John was honored as one of eight black trailblazers as designated by the Library of Virginia's African American History Month.

John Cephas, along with his harmonica playing partner Phil Wiggins, performed thousands of concerts and festivals all over the world. Often under the auspices of the U.S. State Department, the two spent much of the 1980s abroad, playing Europe, Africa, Central and South America, China, Australia and New Zealand. In 1988, they were among the first Americans to perform at the Russian Folk Festival in Moscow. In 1997 Cephas & Wiggins performed for President Bill Clinton. In addition, John appeared on stage portraying a blind bluesman in the Kennedy Center production of Blind Man Blues. He also appeared in a production of Zora Neal Hurston’s play, Polk County, in Washington, D.C.

Among his many endeavors, John served on the Executive Committee of the National Council for the Traditional Arts, and has testified before Congressional committees. He is also a founder of the Washington, D.C. Blues Society. “More than anything else,” said John, “I would like to see a revival of country blues by more young people…more people going to concerts, learning to play the music. That’s why I stay in the field of traditional music. I don’t want it to die.”

John Cephas was born in Washington, D.C. in 1930 into a deeply religious family and raised in Bowling Green, Virginia. His first taste of music was gospel, but blues soon became his calling. After learning to play the alternating thumb and fingerpicking guitar style that defines Piedmont blues, John began emulating the records he heard by Blind Boy Fuller, Blind Blake, Rev. Gary Davis and other early blues artists. Aside from playing blues, John worked early on as a professional gospel singer, carpenter and Atlantic fisherman. By the 1960s, he was starting to make a living from his music.

John first met his future partner Phil Wiggins in 1976 at the Smithsonian National Folklife Festival in Washington, D.C. and the two quickly formed a duo. By the early 1980s, the international blues community recognized this marvelous acoustic twosome as the leading exponents of traditional Tidewater blues. While overseas in 1981, they recorded two albums, Living Country Blues and Sweet Bitter Blues, for the German L&R label. Cephas & Wiggins recorded their first domestic album, Dog Days Of August (Flying Fish Records), in 1987 in John’s living room, and it quickly won a Blues Music Award for Best Traditional Blues Album of the Year.

In 1996, Cephas & Wiggins made their Alligator Records debut with Cool Down. They followed up with Homemade, Somebody Told The Truth and Shoulder To Shoulder. Their most recent CD, 2009’s Richmond Blues, was released on the Smithsonian Folkways label

www.alligator.com/index.cfm?section=news&newsID=393
-----------------------------------------------------------------

[Gerry C]

Really sad news. I'm sorry to say I never met John, but I have several of his albums with Phil Wiggins and enjoy them a lot. They seemed the legitimate heirs of Sonny & Brownie, bringing back into the forefront of the blues tradition the wonderful Piedmont style. John appears to have been as good and fine a human being as was a musician. My sincere condolences to his family and friends.

Gerry C