Friday May 18, 2012 at 8 pm, $15 (reservations required, call 905-543-8512). Artword Artbar 15 Colbourne Street, Hamilton, announces a special concert with the legendary singer-songwriter-guitarist and social activist Josh White Jr., on his first Ontario visit since the 2010 Mariposa Festival. Josh will be playing an intimate concert of blues, folk and a little jazz. http://www.joshwhitejr.com/
Extolled for folk and blues and as a consummate exponent of his legendary father’s unique guitar style, Josh has received major awards and recognition in many show biz areas including a Tony Award and two Grammy nominations, Several performers such as Harry Belafonte have performed his compositions. Josh has appeared on countless TV variety and talk shows, including his own PBS/TV Concert Special “Ramblin” with Josh White, Jr.”. Following 9/11, he was the first artist authorised and invited to sing a set of inspirational songs at New York’s hallowed Ground Zero site. Josh has received wide recognition as a humanitarian, a trait inherited from his father with whom he performed at President Johnson’s Inauguration and at a Command Performance for the Prime Minister of Canada. Josh Jr. has received Honorary Doctorates from several universities, has been named “Voice of The Peace Corps” and “Voice of VISTA” by the US government, Man of The Year of his home state, Michigan, and much more.
While in the Toronto area, Josh is also performing at Robert Missen’s Green Door Cabaret in Toronto on Saturday May 19.
Like his father before him, Josh White, Jr. is uniquely accepted in the worlds of blues, folk, jazz, gospel, acting and social activism. Over his long career, he has recorded many albums for a dozen labels, written songs for Pete Seeger and Harry Belafonte, performed on the world’s greatest concert stages, headlined more than 2,000 college concerts, guest starred in more than 50 TV dramas, toured with the Dance Theatre of Harlem (singing the “John Henry Suite”), and earned a TONY Award on Broadway (“How Long Till Summer”), while also becoming a respected children’s performer and an in-role behavioral teacher with the teaching program he co-founded, Living History.
In the 1940s as a child star performing with his father, and in the ensuing years that followed, he has shared the stage and was befriended by many other legendary artists and personalities from the past, such as: Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, Paul Robeson, Ethel Walters, Lead Belly, Dorothy Gish, Billie Holiday, Joe Louis, Woody Guthrie, Libby Holman, Duke Ellington, Mary Lou Williams, Burl Ives, Frank Sinatra, Kate Smith, Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee, Georgie Jessel, Big Bill Broonzy, Fredi Washington, Donald O’Connor, Arthur Godfrey, Ian Keith, Mildred Bailey, Richard Boone, Ossie Davis, Arthur O’Connell, Claudia McNeil, Steve Allen, Sammy Davis, Jr., Sonny Boy Williamson, Beah Richards, Godfrey Cambridge, Edward Everett Horton, Nina Simone, Ossie Davis, Odetta, and Franklin & Eleanor Roosevelt.
