Pilgrim Profiles: Your guide to the freshest faces in grass-roots music
By: Tim Newby
Band: Selwyn Birchwood Band (Official Webpage)
Hometown: Tampa, Florida
Members: Selwyn Birchwood (Guitar, Lap Steel, Vocals), Regi Oliver (Saxophone), Donald “Huff” Wright (Bass), Courtney “Big Love” Girlie (Drums)
Sounds Like: A trip down highway 61 from the blues clubs in Chicago to the juke joints in Mississippi through the swamps around New Orleans.
For Fans Of: Taj Mahal, Keb Mo’, Buddy Guy, B.B. King
Bio: Selwyn Birchwood discovered the blues via Jimi Hendrix as a teenager in his hometown of Orlando, Florida. Shortly after he met blues musician Sonny Rhodes, who invited Birchwood to join his band. Rhodes mentored Birchwood for the next four years untile Birchwood left to form his own, Selwyn Birchwood Band in 2010. The band found immediate success, winning the Blue’s Foundation’s International Blues Challenge in 2013, at which Birchwood also won the prestigious Albert King Guitarist of the year award. Birchwood signed with Chicago-based blues label, Alligator Records, shortly after and since has released two albums for the label, 2014’s Don’t Call No Ambulance 2017’s Pick Your Poison, which highlighted Birchwood’s powerful guitar work, that screams with emotion and soul.
Albums: FL Boy (2011), Road Worn (2013), Don’t Call No Ambulance (2014), Pick Your Poison (2017)
Key Tracks:
What They Do Live:
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