This week it's RLC Blues Thursday as we welcome Italy's Tito & The Chicken Raiders to our stage with Atlanta blues legend Mudcat opening the show. Pre-show jam at 6pm before the show at 8pm.
$9 Adv – $12 Door
Doors @ 6 PM (pre-show open jam)
Andrea "Tito" Esposito learned to love music from his father in Naples Italy, where he was born in 1983. At 16 he started making informal appearances singing with a friend, and at 20 he picked up the guitar. In 2005 he enrolled at the "Accademia Musicale di Firenze" in Florence Italy, where he met two musicians of considerable reputation in Italian popular music: Riccardo Mori (guitarist with Vasco Rossi) and Michele Vitulli (bassist with Articolo 31). After playing semi-professionally for several years, he entered the "Festival di Castrocaro" in 2013 and made it to the semifinals as a songwriter. He also performed at "Sanremo Doc" as part of the historical Italian music festival called "Sanremo". However, these successes in the Italian singer-songwriter style were being challenged for Tito’s attention. Over the years playing live, he grew more and more interested in playing music he had discovered outside the Italian tradition – like reggae, soul, and blues.
Then in October 2013 everything changed. He met an American artist by the name of Jason Evers Johnson (aka Son Red John) living in Perugia, Italy and began collaborating as a duo called ByeByeBird. Shortly after, Johnson introduced Tito to an old friend: Atlanta legend Daniel "Mudcat" Dudeck, who was playing a show in Perugia, Italy. Dudeck invited ByeByeBird to play the "Chicken Raid" festival in Atlanta. Unfortunately Johnson fell ill, yet insisted the young Esposito get over to Atlanta and play the festival alone. So in March 2014 Esposito found himself in the middle of the Atlanta blues scene, where he was exposed to the "Piedmont blues" and country blues and the music of early influential greats from the Atlanta/Piedmont region, like Blind Willie McTell, Curley Weaver, Buddy Moss, and Frank Edwards.
While in Atlanta, he recorded an EP with fellow musicians from the Chicken Raid festival, produced by David Snave Evans, and scheduled for release in 2015. After returning to Italy he completed his self-produced debut album of italian music called Estro ci vorrà, with keyboardist and producer Marco Evangelista, as well as Francesco Palazzetti and "Big Tune" Mastering.
Born on the banks of the Mississippi River and raised in Georgia, Mudcat began engaging audiences while traveling and busking on the streets. He connected with and entertained folks in New York, New Orleans, Austin and San Antonio, where his incredible vocals and guitar playing kept people mesmerized. After leaving the National Shakespeare Conservatory in New York, he started playing music full-time, finally settling back home in the Deep South in Atlanta.From these humble beginnings, Mudcat has grown an incredible following of fans and friends throughout the world. He introduces audiences to a diverse array of Southern music, including gospel, delta and piedmont blues, Cajun, Americana, and country.
Whether performing solo on a stage or moving easily through crowds with his fantastic band backing him, Mudcat is a one-of-a-kind entertainer and showman.
Danny "Mudcat" Dudeck is an internationally known gospel and bluesman. Mudcat continues the traditions of the early blues pioneers while adding his own Mudcat edge, resulting in one of Atlanta’s greatest treasures." — Atlanta History Center
[Mudcat is] a world-class slide guitarist, and most of all a God-gifted entertainer. I have witnessed him light up packed houses at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, at the Irving Plaza in New York, to open air concerts in front of 10,000 folks in Lugano, Switzerland, to sitting on a curb in San Jose, Costa Rica entertaining dozens of young kids. Mud is born to make people smile and enjoy life. — Tim Duffy, Music Maker Relief Foundation