Tickets for August 20, 21 & 22 go on sale Wednesday, March 11
The upcoming summer season in the mountain town of Durango, Colorado peaks on a high note on August 20, 21 & 22 as the Durango Blues Train announces the artist lineup. The August lineup features The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band, Guitar Shorty, Hector Anchondo, Dustin Arbuckle & Matt Woods, Hymn For Her and Big Jon Short.
The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band
Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band has built its reputation the long, slow, hard way. After 12 years of playing as many as 300 shows each year, Rev. Peyton, the world’s foremost country blues finger-style picker, along with the biggest little band in the country has pieced together one of the most dedicated followings out there. This following is sure to eat up the band’s latest offering, Poor Until Payday, (the second on their own Family Owned Records label through hip Nashville indie Thirty Tigers) out October 5th, a country blues record that was made the right way — two feet on the ground and both hands getting dirty.
With all the power of a freight train, the Big Damn Band is known for its live shows. Rev. Peyton delivers guitar pyrotechnics the old fashioned way — ten fingers, a 6 string and an amp cranked at full tilt. In the country blues style, he plays the bass with his thumb, while picking the lead with his fingers at the same time. When he lifts the guitar behind his head to play there’s nothing but skill and 16 gauge nickel strings to make the sounds coming out of the speakers.
Beside him on stage are just two other people. His wife, “Washboard” Breezy Peyton playing with all the nuance and percussive power of a New Orleans drum line, and keeping the train moving is Max Senteney on a lean drum kit including a 5 gallon maple syrup bucket. Together they play Peyton’s wildman country blues that’s as much ZZ Top as it is Bukka White.
Guitar Shorty
Legendary guitarist/vocalist Guitar Shorty is a giant in the blues world. Credited with influencing both Jimi Hendrix and Buddy Guy, Guitar Shorty has been electrifying audiences for five decades with his supercharged live shows and his incendiary recordings.
Like a bare knuckled boxer, Shorty strikes with his blistering, physical guitar playing and his fierce vocals, connecting directly with body and soul. What really sets Shorty apart is his absolutely unpredictable, off-the-wall guitar playing. He reaches for sounds, riffs and licks that other blues players wouldn't even think of. Amazon.com says his guitar work "sounds like a caged tiger before feeding time. His molten guitar pours his psychedelicized solos like lava over anything in his path." The Chicago Reader declares, "Guitar Shorty is a battle-scarred hard-ass. He slices off his phrases and notes with homicidal fury. He is among the highest-energy blues entertainers on the scene."
Through the years, Shorty has performed with blues and R&B luminaries like Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, B.B. King, Guitar Slim and T-Bone Walker. He started playing with these legends while still in his teens and recorded a handful of singles for a variety of labels and an obscure LP during the first 30 years of his career. After decades of paying his dues (like so many unheralded American bluesmen), it took a tour of England to establish Shorty's fame in his home country. His recordings since then all received massive critical acclaim, and his renowned live performances have kept him constantly in demand all over the world. His 2004 Alligator Records debut, Watch Your Back, became his best-received, best-selling album to date. His 2006 follow-up, We The People, won the coveted Blues Music Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album Of The Year.
Now, with his new CD, Bare Knuckle, Guitar Shorty unleashes a barrage of hard-hitting combinations of guitar, vocals and lyrics, hitting his listeners with some of the most awe-inspiring guitar and vocal work of his long career.
Héctor Anchondo
Growing up on a Missouri farm, Anchondo picked up guitar as a teen. He immediately began soaking up music: roots, Latino, bluegrass and old blues. After high school, he headed to Omaha, Nebraska to start his music career.
While other guys his age were going to college, getting married, buying homes, and building professional careers, Héctor Anchondo played guitar. Living on the road and taking jobs whenever necessary, Héctor put off marriage, put off having kids, and instead, he played guitar. And, it wasn't long before his guitar playing became a thing of legend in the Omaha area, where he is based. However, as much as he was beloved by his thousands of fans in the Heartland, he remained largely unknown to the rest of the world. Until now.
After placing in the semi-finals in 2015, and the finals in 2016 at the International Blues Challenge in Memphis, TN, Héctor Anchondo is at long last taking his rightful place at the forefront of the contemporary blues world.
Following up his solid 2014 album Young Guns, Anchondo released the album Roll the Dice in 2017. It quickly leapt to the top of the blues charts and continues to get global radio play. Critics fell over themselves to heap the album with praise, calling it “fabulous”, “inventive”, “magnificent” and “absolutely beautiful.”
Dustin Arbuckle & Matt Woods
Dustin Arbuckle and Matt Woods have each been hard at work on the blues and roots music scene for nearly two decades. Arbuckle, from Wichita, KS, was a founding member of the critically acclaimed progressive roots rock/blues act Moreland & Arbuckle, with whom he toured internationally and released 7 albums over 15 years before the band parted ways in 2017. Woods, a native of central Iowa, has been a fixture of the midwestern music community, averaging over 100 shows per year and recording 3 albums as a solo artist and 2 with his former band, The Thunderbolts. After years of hearing and admiring each other’s music, Arbuckle and Woods finally connected and began playing together in 2018. The two quickly developed a strong musical chemistry based on their mutual passion for old-school blues, especially the traditional rural styles of Mississippi and the electric Chicago blues sounds of the 1940s and 50s. Their music combines these influences with elements of gospel, country music, and more, while Woods’ fiery voice and tenacious guitar playing blend perfectly with Arbuckle’s more subtly soulful singing and harmonica style to give the duo the ability to deliver it all with power and authenticity.
Hymn For Her
Hymn for Her have been busy touring across the country and abroad over the past few years, injecting juiced-up backwoods country blues with a dose of desert rock psychedelia that has been described in such ways as, “Hell’s Angels meets the Amish.”, "Opening up Pandoras box and out jumps two hillbillies with electronics that blow your mind."
Hymn For Her smash through the highway guardrails and land in a carnival on a hot air balloon. Float away with them on their latest release, ‘Pop-N-Downers’, recorded with Vance Powell. For their 3rd release, “Hymn for Her Presents . . . Lucy and Wayne’s Smokin Flames”, the twosome kicked it into high gear. They traveled to Ghetto Recorders/Detroit to work with Jim Diamond. They recorded live and mixed 12 original songs in just one week. The duo certainly covers a lot of musical territory in Smokin Flames. Their wild-eyed mash-up of country, blues and punk led U.K. music critic Steve Bennett to call H4H’s sound “a riotous, rocking roadkill stew,” while others have referenced such diverse bands as Captain Beefheart, Primus, X, R.L. Burnside, JS Blues Explosion and the Ramones.
They recorded their 2nd album, “Hymn for Her Presents . . . Lucy and Wayne and the Amairican Stream”, in their vintage 1961 Bambi Airstream trailer. Their first release, "Year of the Golden Pig" is a bare bones acoustic album recorded in a cabin on a cove on an island off the rocky coast of Maine. It captures the stark barren winter with haunting melodies and yearning lyrics. Impressively, the two create their ripsaw sounds with only a few instruments. Wayne (with the devilish voice), mainly playing the kick-drum, high-hat, acoustic guitar and harp, serves as the group’s rhythmic driving force. Lucy (of the fallen-angel voice) delivers a gritty squall on her “Lowebow” — a custom-made cigar-box guitar: “The Riff Monster.”
Catch this duo as they burn down the highway and tear up the Blues Train like a Wichita twister.
Big Jon Short
Armed with foot percussion, a National Reso-phonic Guitar and Lowebow cigar-box reso-hillharp, Big Jon Short’s high energy solo performances bring a foot-stomping show that taps into the heart of the songs, regional styles, and folklore of the blues and its importance to American music. Based in the Northeast US, he travels and performs between 150-200 shows per year in BBQ joints, breweries, blues rooms and festivals from Massachusetts to Mississippi.
Refreshments will be available for purchase on board. Guests can enjoy light snacks, bars with wine, craft beer from award-winning regional brewery partners Telluride Brewing Company and Ska Brewing.
Blues Train tickets are set to go on sale Wednesday, March 11. Tickets are $119 per person per night, plus a Historic Train Preservation fee. Tickets are limited and will sell out in advance. Purchasers must be 21 years old to participate. Tickets will be available online here and over the phone at (970) 728-8037. For more information, click here.