Lionel Young to appear at Bert’s
The Lionel Young Duo, and the Lionel Young Band, will appear for the first time at Bert’s Bar and Grill Halloween weekend. The duo will appear Sunday, Oct. 30, at 3 p.m., and the band will appear Halloween, Monday, Oct. 31, at 7 p.m.
“Lionel Young is the first ‘double-champion’ in the history of the International Blues Challenge band competition,” Bernard Johnson, owner of Bert’s said. “He’s a pure high-energy performer with a bent for the blues. He has won numerous awards for best in and around the Colorado region, and has won the 2011 International Blues Challenge band competition. Young has also won at the 2008 International Blues Competition in the solo-duo category.”
Fans of the band describe the group as “driven.”
“I am a classically trained musician with a passion for the blues,” Young said. “The show features original material as well as interpretations of blues classics by Willie Dixon, Leadbelly and Stevie Ray Vaughan. The songs include Brown Cloud Over Denver and ‘Hey, O.J.,’ a controversial little gem that stirs up social concerns.”
Young was born in Rochester, New York. He began taking violin lessons at the age of 6 with Anastasia Jempel-is at the Eastman School of Music. He was a member of the Pittsburgh Opera-Ballet Orchestra and the National Repertory Orchestra which commissioned him to play bluegrass and blues for the summer festival and on a tour of Japan, Taiwan and Korea during the 1988 Summer Olympic Music Festival.
Young has had the honor of working with such show biz luminaries as Count Basie, Stevie Wonder, Jimmy Paige / Robert Plant, Doc Severenson, Linda Ronstadt, Living Color, Billy Taylor, Woodie Herman, Stan-ley Turrentine, Home-sick James, Homer Brown, Hamlet Bluiett, Chief Bae, and Jonny Lang.
American Blues News wrote, “The Lionel Young Band from the Colorado Blues Society brought the Orpheum crowd to its feet with his horn-driven sound. Young, who won the solo-duo crown in 2008, is an entertainer’s entertainer, whether singing, playing guitar or playing his violin.”
“I am thrilled to have the Lionel Young Band here for Halloween Monday,” Johnson said.
For more on the Lionel Young Blues band, visit www.LionelYoung.net