Dr. David Evans

Professor of Ethnomusicology at the University of Memphis, Dr. David Evans is one of the leading contemporary blues musicologists and academics, and the author of the seminal traditional folk blues history Big Road Blues – Tradition and Creativity in the Folk Blues and The NPR Curious Listener’s Guide to the Blues, among others. His latest book, Going Up the Country: Adventures in Blues Fieldwork in the 1960s, co-authored with Marina Bokelman, is a collection of field notes from the ’60s by the two then-graduate students – in the blues communities of Mississippi and Louisiana. Evans has also has produced more than 50 albums of eld and studio recordings for the University of Memphis’ High Water Records. He holds degrees from Harvard and UCLA, has won two Grammys for Best Album Notes, and counts a Fulbright award among his many honors. After recording singer Jack Owens in 1966 as part of his studies, Evans later produced records by him, Jessie Mae Hemphill, R.L. Burnside, and others. But Dr. Evans is also a performer, and his mastery of blues tunings, picking styles, slide and regional styles and an encyclopedic song repertoire mean he can play it as well as he can explain it. Evans has performed at concerts and festivals throughout the U.S. and toured more than 70 times as a solo performer and/or accompanist in 22 countries. In Memphis and the mid-South he performs with the Last Chance Jug Band and recorded Shake That Thing with them in 1997. He has also recorded five solo CDS, the latest being 2018’s Lonesome Midnight Dream. Find him on Facebook.

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