Tab Benoit

Tab Benoit - guitar, vocalist With all the makings of an American music icon, Tab Benoit has become one of the premiere roots stylists of the century. Tab has paid his dues as a road troubadour playing 250 nights a year performing at venues across North America, honing his guitar chops and becoming part of Louisiana folklore. Tab Benoit is a Cajun, born November 17, 1967; he grew up in Houma, Louisiana. A guitar player since his teenage years, he hung out at the Blues Box, a ramshackle music club and cultural center in nearby Baton Rouge run by guitarist Tabby Thomas. Playing guitar alongside Thomas, Raful Neal, Henry Gray and other high-profile regulars at the club, Benoit learned the blues first-hand from a faculty of living blues legends. The nightly impromptu gigs were enough to inspire Benoit to assemble his own band�"a stripped down bass-and-drums unit propelled by his solid guitar skills and leathery, Cajun- spiced vocal attack. He took his show on the road in the early '90s and hasn't stopped since. Benoit landed a recording contract with the tiny, Texas- based Justice Records and released a series of well- received recordings, beginning in 1992 with “Nice and Warm,” an album that prompted comparisons to blues guitar heavyweights like Albert King, Albert Collins and even Jimi Hendrix. Despite the hype, Benoit has done his best over the years to maintain a commitment to his Cajun roots, a goal that often eluded him when past producers and promoters tried to turn him and his recordings in a rock direction, often against his better instincts. “These Blues Are All Mine,” released on Vanguard in 1999 after Justice folded, marked a return to the rootsy sound that he'd been steered away from for several years. That same year, he appeared on “Homesick for the Road,” a collaborative album on the Telarc label with fellow guitarists Kenny Neal and Debbie Davies. Homesick not only served as a showcase for three relatively young but clearly rising stars in the blues constellation, but also launched Benoit's relationship with Telarc that came to fruition in 2002 with the release of “Wetlands” arguably the most authentically Cajun installment in his entire ten-year discography. Later in 2002, Benoit released “Whiskey Store,” a collaborative recording with fellow guitarist Jimmy Thackery. Also along for the ride on Whiskey Store are harpist Charlie Musselwhite and Double Trouble, the two-man rhythm section of bassist Tommy Shannon and drummer Chris Layton that backed Stevie Ray Vaughn on his brief but luminous blues career.

After a prolific first year with Telarc, Benoit continued to explore the bayou backbeat in 2003 with the June release of “Sea Saint Sessions,” a collection of gritty, cajun-flavored tracks recorded at Big Easy Recording Studio (better known among musicians in the region as Sea Saint Studio) in New Orleans. In addition to Benoit and his regular crew, bassist Carl Dufrene and drummer Darryl White, "Sea Saint Sessions" includes numerous guest appearances by Big Chief Monk Boudreaux, Cyril Neville, Brian Stoltz and George Porter. That same year, Benoit and Thackery took their dueling guitar show on the road and recorded a March 2003 performance at the Unity Centre for Performing Arts in Unity, Maine. The result was “Whiskey Store Live,” a high- energy guitar fest released in February 2004. Benoit returned in 2005 with “Fever for the Bayou,” a straight ahead Louisiana blues recording that seamlessly merges his own songcraft with that of Elmore James, Buddy Guy and other masters. Fever for the Bayou also includes guest appearances by Cyril Neville (vocals and percussion) and Big Chief Monk Boudreaux (vocals). Benoit continued to dig the roots in 2006 with the release of “Brother to the Blues,” a recording that encompasses not only his trademark cajun blues but also traditional country and vintage R&B. He released “Power of the Ponchartrain," in 2007, and has been actively involved in the recovery efforts to the Louisiana Swamplands since Katrina. In 2001 Benoit released "MEDICINE" which was co- produced by Tab Benoit / Anders Osborne and engineered by David Z at Dockside Studio in Maurice, LA. The recording features Tab on guitar and vocals along with Anders Osborne on guitar , Ivan Neville on Hammond B3, Drummer Brady Blade, Corey Duplechin on Bass, and Michael Doucet on Fiddle. Six of the most relevant root's musicians of today have joined together to bring to you the deepest grooves and most meaningful roots music that some say top Tab Benoit's catalog.

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Tab Benoit At The Boulder Theater

by Steven Roby
September 9, 2023

Tab Benoit with The Rumble Boulder Theater Boulder, Colorado August 31, 2023 It may have been only a Thursday night in Boulder, CO, but Tab Benoit's concert made it feel like we were smack dab in jny: New Orleans on a sultry Saturday evening. Helping create that Mardi Gras vibe was the opening act, The Rumble, featuring Chief Joseph Boudreaux Jr.. Before they came out, the stage and mic stands were festooned with bayou moss ...

Live Review

Tab Benoit at the Center for Humanities and Arts

by C. Michael Bailey
February 16, 2020

Tab Benoit Center for Humanities and Arts -Pulaski Technical College North Little Rock, Arkansas February 7, 2020 The twin cities, Little Rock and North Little Rock, Arkansas have a secret. It is a perfect, medium-audience venue for music, theater, and assorted other presentations. The Center for Humanities and Arts at Pulaski Technical College is a warm and welcoming place that is clean, well-lighted, and, in short, grown up. Houma, Louisiana-native Tab Benoit said as much. ...

Album Review

Tab Benoit: Legacy: The Best of Tab Benoit

Read "Legacy: The Best of Tab Benoit" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
April 1, 2012

Louisiana-born guitarist and singer Tab Benoitis from so deep in the wetlands that it's almost all ocean. Hailing from Houma, the seat of Terrebonne Parish, Benoit has indisputable bayou bona fides and the exposure to that musical and cultural melting pot called the Gulf Rim that comes with it. Telarc's Legacy: The Best of Tab Benoit demonstrates his expansive musical palette and sure grasp of zydeco, creole, blues, R&B, and rock as viewed through the NOLA prism. Selected from Benoit's ...

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Album Review

Tab Benoit: Brother to the Blues

Read "Brother to the Blues" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
September 2, 2006

Tab Benoit can always be counted on to release solid Creole blues recordings. That special mix of the Mississippi Delta and Louisiana deep bayou is what makes Benoit stand out from an ever-burgeoning population of blues artists. He capitalizes on this fact by giving his road band a vacation and taking on Louisiana's Leroux as his rhythm section. If that was not enough, he also brings some friends along for the ride. The result, Brother to the Blues, proves Benoit's ...

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Album Review

Tab Benoit: Brother to the Blues

Read "Brother to the Blues" reviewed by Jim Santella

by Jim Santella
April 25, 2006

Roots music comes in several flavors. Some enthusiasts look to early Mississippi Delta roots blues, others the music of W.C. Handy. They have a lot in common. Some look to rock & roll, and others, like Tab Benoit, look to country & western music for their blues roots. It all comes together when you look back far enough.

Blues pioneers Robert Johnson, Tommy Johnson, Son House, Skip James and Charley Patton all shared a little from the country ...

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Album Review

Tab Benoit: Fever for the Bayou

Read "Fever for the Bayou" reviewed by Jim Santella

by Jim Santella
April 3, 2005

Tab Benoit's title track reflects the Zydeco music of his homeland. It's in his blood. Born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, he's grown up with this “poor man's music" and has come to find that it's a perfect way of expressing what ordinary people like us feel every day of our lives. The message is plain and simple: live every day to the fullest and don't look back. No regrets, no self-pity, no envy. Just go on, don't think about what ...

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Album Review

Tab Benoit: Fever for the Bayou

Read "Fever for the Bayou" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
March 15, 2005

Looking at the cover photo of Tab Benoit's new recording, Fever for the Bayou, one would fear that the big label creep might have cleaned up Mr. Benoit a bit too much. The guitarist/singer is sporting a crisp purple (mauve, as my wife would say) shirt, a stylish gelled haircut, and perfectly cultivated five-o'clock shadow. Is this the same artist who delivered the staggering Nice and Warm in 1992, representing the greatest hope for the blues since Stevie Ray Vaughan?

Award / Grant

Tedeschi-Trucks, Tab Benoit Top Blues Music Awards

Source: HypeBot
May 12, 2012

The big winners at the 33rd Blues Music Awards were Tab Benoit and the Tedeschi-Trucks Band. Tab took home 3 awards and Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks combined for 5. Benoit took top honors in Contemporary Male Artist and Album and B.B. King Entertainer of the Year. The Tedeschi Trucks Band took Band and Album of the Year Awards, while Susan is top Contemporary Female Artist and Derek won Gibson Guitarist of the Year. Both Ruthie Foster and Charlie Musselwhite ...
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Recording

New Tab Benoit Compilation from Telarc/Concord Coming April 3

Source: conqueroo
March 4, 2012

In a career of more than two decades, blues guitarist/vocalist Tab Benoit has generated an impressive body of work—every note of it rooted in the rich and centuries-old musical and cultural traditions of his native Louisiana. While his earliest recordings and performances may have established him as a genuine blues musician, his ever-expanding body of work has become even more resonant in the years since Hurricane Katrina and its devastating aftermath in 2005. Through his environmental advocacy work with Voice ...
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Recording

Tab Benoit - Medicine (2011)

Source: Something Else!
July 9, 2011

Since his 1992 debut Nice And Warm, you always know exactly what you'll get from a Tab Benoit record: honest, rough-and-ready electric blues with a dash of Cajun seasoning, soulful bayou ballads and a two-step or two thrown in for good measure, In many ways, that can sum up Benoit's new offering, Medicine, too. I'm still waiting for Benoit to take the easy way out dub over his guitar, or accentuate his songs with anything more than an occasional organ ...
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Recording

Forgotten Series: Tab Benoit - Wetlands (2002)

Source: Something Else!
January 1, 2011

By Pico Ten years before Wetlands, a young Cajun kid from Baton Rouge walked into a Houston studio and produced some of the most refreshingly honest rock-tinged swamp blues ever heard. Yet, one worried that Benoit would go the way of may bluesmen who've tasted success and eventually dilute the pure sound of 1992's Nice And Warm until he becomes just another rock axe grinder miscast as a bloozer. We needn't have. Six albums later, Tab's sound was even more ...
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