Super acoustic country bluesman Roy Book Binder returns for his 4th Cook Shack appearance to showcase his unique blues singing and songwriting, fantastic thumb-style guitar picking, and famous yarns and stories.  It’s going to be a fun and memorable night!

It’s hard to believe that a year has passed since Roy ’s songs have echoed in the halls of the Cook Shack, but it’s Roy Book Binder time again!  As we write, Roy is touring in Canada , but he’ll be heading south before long to hook up with the Cook Shack gang. 

We are again more than honored to feature an encore performance at the Cook Shack with one of America ’s premier acoustic bluesmen. 

Roy Book Binder, the man with the world class mustache, is a blues-singing, guitar-picking song raconteur and blues legend who has traveled the world with his guitar for the past 30+ years.  He is one of THE names in acoustic blues and is simply the best when it comes to hot lick, finger-style blues guitar, plus he’s a guy teeming with hilarious stories and great old blues tunes, not to mention his own great songs.  With more than 20 albums and instructional videos to his credit, he’s a real force on the acoustic blues scene.  We are very lucky that he’s become a friend of the Cook Shack and he’s once again is passing our way. 

A Little About Roy …

Back in the early 1960s, Roy learned his craft from the legendary blind street singer, Reverend Gary Davis, who was thrust into the national spotlight when Peter, Paul & Mary recorded his song "If I Had My Way." After two years of traveling the folk-blues circuit with his mentor, Roy struck out on his own. Along the way, he befriended Pink Anderson, an old Carolina medicine show performer and one of the “real” bluesmen of the early part of the 20^th century. Before Anderson passed away, he gave Roy all his songs, and instructed him to please keep his name alive.

Over the years, Roy Book Binder has befriended quite a cast of blues characters in his travels, including three peg-legged dancers, and a 90 year old classic blues singer with a sparkling smile, who went by the name of Diamond Teeth Mary (Bessie Smith's half sister). 

Roy has toured with Bonnie Raitt, Hot Tuna, and J.J. Cale. He has been invited to many festivals including: The National Storytelling Festival, the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, the Chicago Blues Festival, and MerleFest where he has hosted the acoustic Blues Stage for the past ten years.  Too, he’s been featured on countless public radio and television broadcasts and has been included in the Who’s Who of American Acoustic Blues.

A promise: Tonight you will be entertained.  Roy ’s mastery of country blues on his vintage Gibson guitar skill is a must see and hear for pickers.  It’s a style of guitar playing that is a cousin to the thumb style guitar Cook Shackers already know and love so much, but it’s a different approach and sound.  The blues are often said to be the only true American style of music, and Roy will take you to a place many people have never been with music.  He’ll play for us songs of the mid-20^th century, the classics performed on the streets and in the juke joints of the side streets of a historic America .  Plus, he’ll fascinate and entertain us with funny and appealing stories of the road and share some of his original blues tunes.  Like Roy says about his feelings when he first heard the blues, “It’ll tickle your ear.” 

Whether you’re a seasoned blues fan who has heard Roy in concert again and again, or you’re new to the blues, this is not a night to be missed.  Roy is just the best, and he’s playing tonight for our pleasure in the intimacy of that juke joint we call the Cook Shack.