Louisiana's Tab Benoit and Colorado's own Johnny O. Band sing the blues July 3 at the Crystal Club alongside the Crystal River in Redstone

Grammy Award nominee Tab Benoit knows a whole lot about Louisiana blues.

But ask him the difference between what it feels like to play in Colorado versus Louisiana, and he can’t come up with much.

“Mostly, it’s the altitude and dryness,” he said matter of factly, talking from his tour bus back East in late May. “Yeah. The climate and the view. Other than that, people who come out to listen to us play, no matter where we are, are very similar. They’re enthusiastic and they give us 110 percent. In that way, people are a lot alike.”

Blues en route
Benoit and his three-man blues band are performing July 3 at “A Night of Colorado and Louisiana Blues: Tab Benoit and the Johnny O. Band” at the Crystal Club on Redstone Boulevard.

Opening act for Benoit is the Johnny O. Band. Based in Boulder since 1989, Johnny O. is John Ohnmacht, who grew up in the Roaring Fork Valley and graduated from Roaring Fork High School in Carbondale.

“I was psyched when I heard about this gig with Tab on the bill,” Ohnmacht said. “I’ve seen him develop over the years and he’s gotten so great. Tab is Mr. New Orleans as far as the blues goes.”

Benoit records on Telarc International, one of the world's premier blues and jazz labels, and is has won widespread acclaim and awards, including the Best Contemporary Blues Male Artist of the Year and the B.B. King Entertainer of the Year at the 2007 Blues Music Awards. His “Fever for the Bayou” album won Best Contemporary Blues Album of the Year in 2006.

A Voice of the Wetlands
Like Johnny O. says, Benoit’s the real Louisiana deal. Born in Baton Rouge, his roots go deep, as does his concern for the Gulf Coast’s environmental and cultural future.

He founded Voice of the Wetlands, an environmental organization, two years before Katrina’s devastation. The group brings attention to the Gulf Coast’s vanishing ecosystems, the result of manmade canals and levee systems that have caused erosion and a depletion of wetlands, which in turn leaves the coast vulnerable to hurricanes and other phenomena.

In 2005, Benoit was working on a documentary about the eroding wetlands around New Orleans when Katrina unexpectedly hit, making him more passionate than ever about the Gulf’s future.

Called “Hurricane on the Bayou,” the documentary was released as an IMAX film. It’s narrated by Meryl Streep and features Benoit’s music and work with Voices of the Wetlands.

Authentic New Orleans
Katrina not only changed the environment and city of New Orleans. Benoit said Katrina irrevocably changed New Orleans’ music scene.

“A lot of musicians moved to other places,” he said. “You used to be able to go to the city and music was everywhere on the weekdays, the weekends – it didn’t matter. There used to be things going on all the time. You’d see a lot of music around. Now it’s pretty dead during the week.”

For Colorado-raised John Ohnmacht, New Orleans has been a blues destination.

“With [my previous band] Band du Jour we toured a lot down south,” he said. “We’d make a point of being there during Jazz Fest. We’d spend time down there, going to concerts and clubs.”

Besides touring around the Boulder and Denver area, and Colorado (he’ll be back on Aug. 22 to play with Howard Berkman at a KDNK concert) his band has toured in Holland and Ireland, and recently performed in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The power of music
Music and the wetlands aren’t Benoit’s only passions. He has strong opinions about lobbyists, democracy, and the Gulf Coast, post-Katrina.

“It’s like they’re putting duct tape and plastic leaves on a dying tree,” he said of efforts to build homes in neighborhoods like New Orleans’ 9th Ward, without first repairing the levees and infrastructure that surrounds the region.

His concern has brought him to Washington D.C. to draw attention to these and other social concerns, and it will take him in front of Congress this coming September.

“It’s time to take a real honest look at if we’re really going to rebuild from the foundation up,” he said. “And if we’re not going to rebuild, then let us leave.”

So how do these strong convictions play into Benoit’s music?

“There’s a lot of power in music,” he said. “Music has the power to make people think and feel. Being a musician is being an artist. And the artists of the world are the communicators.”

For more information contact Billy and Kim Amicon at 970-963-6355