“M ANY PEOPLE ASK ME why a fourteen-year old white girl from New York City felt so deeply and personally connected to the music of the black rural south from another era,” Rory Block wrote. “How can you explain love?” As a teenager she immersed herself in the blues, listening and playing, and sought out such greats as the Reverend Gary Davis, Son House, and Mississippi John Hurt. Greenwich Village in the sixties may not have had much in common with the Mississippi Delta except a thriving music culture, but that was enough to get her started — that, an indomitable spirit, and a love for the blues that goes right to the tips of her fingers.

Rory Block’s been a celebrated singer and songwriter for a long time, and the winner of so many awards that we won’t begin to enumerate them. (Not that it's been so easy — read her remarkable autobiographical sketch.) Block’s passion for her music shows itself in a performing style that is so powerful, it takes a toll on both guitar and fingers. “I get massive amounts of energy from the audience, and no matter what mood I may be in, I always connect with them within a song or two and from there the sense of being among friends actually overtakes me and I open up,” she says. “I never have a set list and each show is as different as it can be as a result.” In fact, some say that, in spite of a long string of records (from 1982’s “High Heeled Blues” to 2002’s “I’m Every Woman” ) you don’t know Rory Block until you’ve seen her in in concert. Come connect with the blues.