There’s Life Yet to Folk-Blues With Cephas & Wiggins

Cephas & Wiggins have been labeled folk-blues revivalists, but if you saw the pair invest traditional blues chestnuts with fresh life on Saturday at the Music Machine, you know that rejuvenators is a better term.

Bowling Green John Cephas and Harmonica Phil Wiggins filled the dance floor with simply the former’s acoustic guitar, the latter’s harmonica and their combined voices on Jimmy Reed’s venerable warhorse “Baby, What You Want Me To Do.” Similarly, Cephas’ measured vocals and nagging strumming added a dark, brooding undercurrent to the familiar Reed riffs of “Big Boss Man.”

The Washington-based duo are folk rather than country blues artists--the appropriate reference points would be Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee or Mississippi John Hurt. Wiggins earned the most applause with his expansive, freewheeling harmonica solos, but he was also prone to overplaying that distracted from Cephas’ rich, melodious playing and quietly authoritative singing.