Acrpost: A Project of the Pacific Association of Artist Run Centres

Event Description

Maple Blues Award winner David Vest is an authentic, Southern-bred boogie-woogie piano player and blues shouter. Born in Alabama in 1943, David grew up in Birmingham, near Tuxedo Junction. He played his first paying gig in 1957, and by the time he opened for Roy Orbison on New Year’s Day 1962, he was a seasoned veteran of Gulf Coast roadhouses and honky-tonks.

At the age of 17, David went on tour with Jerry Woodard and the Esquires, some of whom later became key members of the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section and the Muscle Shoals Horns. While still with Woodard, he jammed with Ace Cannon, Bill Black’s Combo and the Jimmy Dorsey Band in clubs along the Florida Panhandle, where fellow Alabaman James Harman would soon make his mark. About the time he turned 21 he found himself onstage backing Big Joe Turner, who said that David Vest’s playing made him feel like he was back home in Kansas City. Later David would receive the "direct laying on of hands" from piano legends like Big Walter The Thunderbird, Katie Webster and Floyd Dixon.

David's many festival appearances include Bumbershoot, King Biscuit, Waterfront (Portland), Winthrop, Edmonton, Calgary, Tremblant, Baltimore, Houston, Ritzville and N.O. Jazzfest (with Miss Lavelle White).

David won the Maple Blues Award for Keyboard/Piano Player Of The Year for 2012 and again for 2014. East Meets Vest was nominated for the Maple Blues’ Recording Of The Year in 2013. David’s 2014 album, Roadhouse Revelation, on Cordova Bay Records, went straight to Number One on the Roots Music Report chart for Canada and garnered a four-star review from Downbeat.
Joining David on stage will be the red-hot Grand Koolios band, including Tim Hearsey on guitar, Rob Becker on bass and Chris Nordquist on drums.

A co-promotion with White Rock Blues Society.