Blues guitarist MacKenzie presents workshops, concert at Renaissance Center

Release Date: 1/30/2004. Expired: 2/28/2004

Dave MacKenzie has been the opening act for blues legends such as Muddy Waters, B.B. King and John Lee Hooker and one reviewer called him “a modern-day Robert Johnson.”

The two-time Music City Blues Society’s Acoustic Blues Act of the Year, MacKenzie brings his special brand of country blues to the Performance Hall of The Renaissance Center for a 7 p.m. performance Feb. 28. Tickets are $10 for adults, $8 for seniors and $5 for children under 13.

MacKenzie also will be offering two blues guitar workshops that same day.

Open Tunings and Slide Guitar is designed for intermediate players and covers the two major opening tunings, G and D, as they were used by legendary blues greats like Robert Johnson, Elmore James and Muddy Waters as well as examples of how they have been adapted by contemporary musicians like Ry Cooder, Bonnie Raitt and the Rolling Stones. The workshop is 12-2 p.m. and costs $35.

Country Blues and Ragtime Guitar is designed for intermediate players and explores the fingerstyle guitar, including Texas and Piedmont styles, with examples from the playing of musicians like Lightnin’ Hopkins, Blind Blake, Robert Johnson and more. Students also will learn how this material went on to influence contemporary styles like rockabilly, rhythm and blues and modern blues guitar. The workshop is 3-5 p.m. and costs $35.

Anyone registering for both blues guitar workshops can do so for $60.

“This is a wonderful opportunity not only to hear one of the premiere blues guitarists in the region, but also a chance for aspiring blues pickers to learn from one of the best,” said Elaine Sherrill, senior director of Music at The Renaissance Center. “Dave MacKenzie has been recognized both in the United States and Europe as one of today’s top country blues songwriters and guitarists.”

A St. Louis native, MacKenzie got his first guitar at age 10, heard his first Lightnin’ Hopkins record at age 11 and played his first professional gig at age 13, debuting at an officers’ club in Germany. MacKenzie played with a honky-tonk band in Mississippi and other folk groups or top-40 bands while in high school, then struck out for Chicago to hit the blues scene.

“After a visit to Memphis, when I got to meet Bukka White, Furry Lewis and Sleepy John Estes, their encouragement helped me to get up the nerve to try my luck in Chicago,” MacKenzie says on the Web site for his record company, Hey Baby! Music.

After moving to Chicago in 1972, MacKenzie began working local clubs and eventually wound up in larger venues as the warm-up act for legends such as Waters, King and Hooker, as well as dozens of other blues and rock and roll headliners.

MacKenzie started getting some of his original songs recorded by other acts, which then prompted a move to Los Angeles.

“Among the people who recorded one of my songs was David Soul (of the Starsky and Hutch television series), who offered me a publishing contract as a staff songwriter, which is why I moved to LA in the winter of ’79,” MacKenzie says.

His songs were recorded by Soul, David Bromberg, gospel act Edwin and Tremaine Hawkins and the rock band Jackal. He continued to do club and concert dates and began working as a studio musician, which led to becoming a music producer for radio and television commercials and to writing scores for independent films.

“Eventually though, I got tired of the rat race in LA and I wanted to concentrate more on the country blues that had inspired me to play in the first place,” MacKenzie says. “Also, I just got homesick for the south.”

Following his move to Nashville in 1989, MacKenzie immediately began getting work in clubs and as a session player. He formed his own label, Hey Baby! Records, in 1993 and his first two CDs, Rats in my Bedroom and All New Slender Man Blues, were both nominated for Nashville Music Awards and received great reviews in the US and Europe.

MacKenzie made his first European tour in 1996 and since then he has returned every year to play major blues festivals like Kiel in Germany, Utrecht in Holland and Brugge in Belgium, as well as scores of club and concert dates and ratio and television appearances.

When not on tour, MacKenzie has been a featured performer as the Bourbon Street Blues and Boogie Bar in Nashville’s famous Printer’s Alley and continues to write songs for artists such as Maria Muldaur, Johnny Jones, James Armstrong and others. His work as a session player led to a special guest appearance on the platinum-selling Jeff Foxworthy album Crank It Up.

MacKenzie regularly participates in the Music City Blues Society’s Blues in the Schools program and conducts demonstrations and lectures at the Country Music Hall of Fame on the history of metal-bodied dobros and early roots recordings.

“I keep pretty busy,” MacKenzie says. “I work as a regional blues act here in the south, I do shows and guitar master classes in Europe and, every now and then, I’ll drag out one of my electric guitars and back up somebody like Homesick James or Sam Moore of Sam and Dave. Being a blues player will never make you rich, but if you do it right you can have a pretty good time.”

MacKenzie’s latest CD, Solo, features modern blues done old style with just MacKenzie playing his dobro and six- and 12-string guitars.

In Downbeat magazine, Frank-John Hadley wonders why MacKenzie isn’t more famous.

“MacKenzie shows so much empathy for country blues doing his tradition-bound songs and his adaptations of Muddy Waters’ Too Young to Know and Sleepy John Estes’ Little Laura that you have to wonder why this singer/guitarist/dobro player isn’t better known. Maybe it’s because the Nashville picker puts perfecting his art before self-promotion,” Hadley writes.

Dave Rubin of Guitar One puts MacKenzie’s effort on Solo in some elite company.

“The Nashville cat plays solo acoustic country blues like nobody’s business on this excellent set of mostly original tunes. His wood, steel, and six- and 12-string guitars display maximum warmth and resonance. MacKenzie struts his stuff like a modern-day Robert Johnson on Two Drags,” Rubin says.

To learn more about MacKenzie or hear some of his music, visit his Web site at www.heybabymusic.com.

For more information on his Feb. 28 concert and workshops at The Renaissance Center, call (615)740-5600. For tickets to the concert call (615)740-5570 and to register for the workshops call (615)740-5533.

The Renaissance Center is an arts and technology education and performing arts center at 855 Highway 46 South in Dickson, just 35 miles west of Nashville on Interstate 40 at exit 172.

Visit the Events - Concerts and Recitals page for more about musical performances.

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