Blues After Hours

Our 16th annual tribute to Mai Cramer, featuring Delanie Pickering, Brian Templeton, Sugar Ray Norcia, Ronnie Earl, Michelle Willson, along with Peter Ward, Neil Gouvin, Mudcat Ward,  Jeff Giacomelli, and Ben Sangiolo.

Some of Who’s Who of Stage Talent at Blues After Hours this year…

Delanie Pickering
(catch her before she’s famous!)

Rising star from New Hampshire currently residing on Martha’s Vineyard, Delanie Pickering (Concord, New Hampshire) is a twenty-something guitarist and singer who reclaims the blues styles originating in Chicago and Texas, combining them brilliantly with doses of swing and New Orleans rhythms. She is currently a member of the blues & roots band Johnny Hoy and the Bluefish, performs on her own at international festivals and plays in three other bands: Rosie’s Ritzy Revue, Black Eyed Susans and Outskirts. See her below lighting up the Bilbao Blues Festival in July!

 

Ronnie Earl

Don’t miss one of the Greatest of All Time as he performs on perhaps his favorite stage in America. Joe Bonamassa was quoted in Guitar Times as saying, “…we recently recorded a cover of I Want to Shout About It, which Ronnie cut for his Peace of Mind album long ago; and of course, Ronnie played in the classic blues style of T-Bone Walker and B.B. King but continues to rely on a very clean tone even now. The first time I saw Ronnie, he was playing a blonde maple-fingerboard Strat through two Super Reverbs, and the sound was clean and larger than life!” He continues that same tradition with another year on stage for Mai Cramer.

Brian Templeton

Commanding over forty (40) years as a stalwart presence in Boston’s formidable music scene with credits including the legendary Radio Kings and the Original House of Blues Blue Monday Band vocalist, songwriter and harmonica player, Brian Templeton has blues music in his DNA. Templeton has won awards while playing to sold out shows across New England and beyond, with the Boston based Delta Generators since hitting the scene in 2008 and returns to Arlington’s Showplace of Entertainment after joining voices with James Montgomery, Jon Butcher and Robin Lane for the sellout Rock n Roll Circus show back in 2024.

Michelle Willson

Willson is recognized for her great stage presence and powerful renditions of numbers by vintage soul/R&B legends such as Dinah Washington, Ruth Brown and Etta James. Michelle is known to blues and jazz lovers worldwide as a performer, bandleader and songwriter. Locally, she has been the WICN’s “Morning Vibe Time” program host (she calls her audience the “Vibe Tribe”) from 6 to 9 a.m. each weekday.

SEAT PRICES

 

About Benefit and Mai Cramer

Proceeds benefit the Ellie Fund which helps women diagnosed with breast cancer and their families.

In 1978 Mai Cramer moved to Boston, joined WGBH Radio and created Blues After Hours. Mai Cramer made things happen. Cramer’s wide-ranging musical appetite — from Acoustic Blues to Jump Blues, Urban Blues and some R&B, with a little Delta Blues and a lot of South Side Chicago Blues mixed in — won her millions of ardent fans. Cambridge-based blues performer Annie Raines once said of Cramer, “Mai was a reliable and constant warm presence on the air. If you needed your blues fix, that’s where you could get it on the radio.” Mai usually leaned toward artists on the Chess or Alligator labels. So her twice-weekly listeners would practically be guaranteed to hear Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, Howlin’ Wolf, Little Walter, Luther Allison, Albert Collins, Buddy Guy, Magic Slim and other legends. The always upbeat Cramer brought a great sense of humor and an encyclopedic knowledge of the blues to the WGBH Radio airwaves until her passing in 2002. We will remember her well…don’t miss this, the “…blues event of the year!”

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