Little Jimmy Reed featuring “Radiator Rick” and Debbie Bond

Little Jimmy Reed featuring “Radiator Rick” and Debbie Bond

Friday, March 24, 2023

Doors open at 7:00 pm, Show starts at 7:30 pm.

ALL TICKETS-$25 (+tax/fees)

Click here to purchase tickets!

3-24-23 at 7:30pm the SCAC Song Theater presents, Little Jimmy Reed. Join us for a night of traditional down home blues! Jimmy will be backed by a full band featuring “Radiator Rick” and Debbie Bond.

Little Jimmy Reed, blues guitar player and singer, has been playing the blues world-wide for decades. He has toured the US, Canada, South America, and Europe sharing his classic down home blues. Leon Atkins, better known as Lil’ Jimmy Reed, is the real deal, as will be attested to by anyone who has been privileged to hear his stinging guitar work, gritty vocals and haunting harmonica. A tall charismatic figure, Lil’ Jimmy epitomizes the classic down-home blues tradition. Born in the late nineteen-thirties in a shot-gun shack in Hardwood, LA, a small cotton and sawmill town on the Mississippi River, Leon grew up near a club where every night he absorbed the wail of the blues from across the street. At six he had his own guitar, made from a cigar box, and by the time he was a teenager he was proficient on both guitar and harmonica, playing local clubs around Baton Rouge. Filling-in one night for blues star Jimmy Reed earned him the sobriquet Lil’ Jimmy Reed and started him on the long path to success. For the past four decades he has made the Wiregrass region of Alabama his home and continued to tour and a regular on the international blues scene.

Singer, guitar player and songwriter Debbie Bond  has been performing for decades in the Alabama backwoods and is now a regular on the Southern US and European club and festival circuit. Influenced by raw juke joint blues and the famed sounds of Muscle Shoals, Debbie’s impressive story includes years of performing with traditional Alabama blues musicians, like Johnny Shines, Eddie Kirkland, Willie King, Shar Baby, Little Jimmy Reed and more. Immersion in Alabama roots music has deeply flavored her guitar playing, soulful voice and original song writing, giving her a contemporary and original sound, with soul, blues, and jazz influences. Debbie’s collaboration with British born keyboard and harmonica player “Radiator” Rick has added a swampy New Orleans edge to her sound. Debbie is a blues activist and founder of the award-winning Alabama Blues Project, a non-profit dedicated to promoting and preserving the state’s blues heritage. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including a “Keeping the Blues Alive Award” from the Blues Foundation, and a prestigious “Coming Up Taller Award” for her blues education work with the Alabama Blues Project. She has been recognized by the Alabama Music Hall of Fame as a “Blues Achiever” and the national Blues Hall of Fame as a “Great Blues Artist”.  Little Jimmy Reed and Debbie Bond have been doing shows here over the last thirty years, doing blues in the schools programs and a double bill on her last UK tour at the Marlborough Jazz and Blues Festival. 2022 she was nominated for blues awards Independent Female Blues Artist of the Year, and Best Contemporary blues album for Blues Without Borders.  In 2023 Debbie and her her band were nominated for Best International Blues Act by the UK Blues Federation.

*Patrons who purchased tickets in advance must present paper ticket or mobile ticket-Will call patrons must check in at window*