Selwyn Birchwood

With his fiery guitar and lap steel playing, his trailblazing, instantly memorable songs and his gritty, unvarnished vocals, Selwyn Birchwood is one of the most remarkable young stars in the blues. His deep familiarity with blues tradition allows him to bust the genre wide open, adding new sounds, colors and textures, all delivered with a revival tent preacher's fervor and a natural storyteller's charisma.

Blues guitarist, vocalist and songwriter Selwyn Birchwood is only 33, but he’s already won the International Blues Challenge, the Albert King Guitarist of the Year Award and been signed to a contract with Alligator Records. Lyric audiences can hear his high-octane blues, rooted in tradition and yet modern and funky at the same time, when he comes to Stuart this fall. The Orlando native, son of a father from Tobago and a mother from the United Kingdom, picked up a guitar when he was 13 and mimicked what he heard on the radio. He grew bored with the 1990s sound and then he heard Jimi Hendrix. In an interview, Birchwood described what happened. “He was larger than life,” he said. “What he did was mind-blowing. When I realized Hendrix was influenced by the blues, I found my path.”