Tab Benoit

All Music Guide:

Guitarist, singer, and songwriter Tab Benoit makes his home near New Orleans in Houma, Louisiana. Born November 17, 1967, he's one of a handful of bright rising stars on the modern blues scene. For most of the 1990s and into the 2000s, he's worked each of his records the old-fashioned way, by playing anywhere and everywhere he and his band can play. Unlike so many others before him, Benoit understands that blues is not a medium in favor with 50,000-watt commercial rock radio stations, so as a consequence, he's combined each of his releases with as many shows as he can possibly play. Since the release of his first album for Justice, Benoit has taken his brand of Cajun-influenced blues all over the U.S., Canada, and Europe. Nice and Warm, his debut album for Houston-based Justice Records, prompted some critics to say he was sometimes reminiscent of three blues guitar gods: Albert King, Albert Collins, and Jimi Hendrix.

Although the hard-working, modest guitarist scoffs at those comparisons, and doesn't think he sounds like them (and doesn't try to sound like them, either), Benoit doesn't appear to be one who's easily led into playing rock & roll instead of his down-home blend of swamp blues and East Texas guitar-driven blues. Talk to Benoit at one of his shows, and he'll tell you about his desire to "stay the course" and not water down his blues by playing items that could be interpreted as "alternative" rock. Despite the screaming guitar licks he coaxes from his Telecaster and his powerful songwriting and singing abilities, Benoit's laid-back, down-to-earth personality off-stage is the exact opposite of his live shows.

Benoit's releases include Nice and Warm (1992), What I Live For (1994), Standing on the Bank (1995), and Live: Swampland Jam (1997), all recorded for Vanguard. Benoit then moved over to the Telarc label for These Blues Are All Mine (1999), Whiskey Store (2002, with Jimmy Thackery), Wetlands (2002), and The Sea Saint Sessions (2003). In 2004, Benoit released Whiskey Store Live, recorded with Thackery on the support tour for Whiskey Store. Fever for the Bayou was released on the Telarc label in 2005, a year that also also saw Voice of the Wetlands come out on Rykodisc. Another album from Telarc, Brother to the Blues, appeared in 2006. Power of the Pontchartrain and Night Train to Nashville followed in 2007 and 2008, respectively, while 2011 saw the release of Medicine, which featured seven songs co-written by Benoit and Anders Osborne among its 11 tracks. Considering that many of Benoit's records have surpassed the 50,000 mark, he seems well on his way to a career that could rival the kind of popularity the late Stevie Ray Vaughan enjoyed in the late '80s.

Wikipedia:

Tab Benoit (born November 17, 1967, Baton Rouge, Louisiana) is an American blues guitarist, musician and singer. He plays a style that is a combination of blues styles, primarily Delta blues. He plays a Fender Telecaster Thinline electric guitar and writes his own musical compositions. Benoit graduated from Vandebilt Catholic High School in Houma, Louisiana in May, 1985. In 2003, he formed an organization promoting awareness of coastal wetlands preservation known as "Voice of the Wetlands."

A guitar player since his teenage years, he appeared at the Blues Box, a music club and cultural center in Baton Rouge run by guitarist Tabby Thomas. Playing guitar alongside Thomas, Raful Neal, Henry Gray and other high-profile regulars at the club, Benoit learned the blues first-hand from a faculty of living blues legends. He formed a trio in 1987 and began playing clubs in Baton Rouge and New Orleans. He began touring other parts of the south two years later and started touring more of the United States in 1991- and he continues to this day.

He was featured in the IMAX film, Hurricane on the Bayou.

On May 16, 2010, at the LMHOF Louisiana Music Homecoming in Erwinville, Louisiana, Benoit was inducted into The Louisiana Music Hall of Fame.

Career

Benoit landed a recording contract with the Texas-based Justice Records and released a series of recordings, beginning in 1992 with Nice and Warm. These Blues Are All Mine, was released on Vanguard in 1999 after Justice folded.

That same year, he appeared on Homesick for the Road, a collaborative album on the Telarc label with fellow guitarists Kenny Neal and Debbie Davies. Homesick not only served as a showcase for three relatively young musicians, but also launched Benoit’s relationship with Telarc that came to fruition in 2002 with the release of Wetlands.

On Wetlands, Benoit mixed original material such as the autobiographical "When a Cajun Man Gets the Blues" and "Fast and Free" with Professor Longhair’s “Her Mind Is Gone” and Otis Redding's "These Arms of Mine".

Later in 2002, Benoit released Whiskey Store, a collaborative recording with fellow guitarist and Telarc labelmate Jimmy Thackery, as well as harpist Charlie Musselwhite and Double Trouble; the two-man rhythm section of bassist Tommy Shannon and drummer Chris Layton.

In 2003, Benoit released Sea Saint Sessions, recorded at Big Easy Recording Studio in New Orleans. In addition to Benoit and his regular crew, bassist Carl Dufrene and drummer Darryl White, Sea Saint Sessions included guest appearances by Big Chief Monk Boudreaux, Cyril Neville, Brian Stoltz and George Porter. That same year, Benoit and Thackery took their dueling guitar show on the road, and recorded a March 2003 performance at the Unity Centre for Performing Arts in Unity, Maine. The result was Whiskey Store Live, released in February 2004.

Benoit's 2005 release was Fever for the Bayou, which also included guest appearances by Cyril Neville (vocals and percussion) and Big Chief Monk Boudreaux (vocals).

In 2006, Benoit recorded Brother To The Blues with Louisiana's LeRoux. It was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Blues Album.

His song Shelter Me is the theme song for the Discovery Channel TV-series Sons of Guns.

In April, 2011 Benoit released Medicine featuring Anders Osborne, Michael Doucet of Beausoleil, and Ivan Neville.

Business ventures and activism

Benoit was owner of Tab Benoit's Lagniappe Music Cafe, situated in the downtown district of Houma, Louisiana.

Benoit has also been involved in the conservation of the Louisiana wetlands. He is the founder of 'Voice of the Wetlands,' an organization promoting awareness of the receding coastal wetlands of Louisiana.