Pell City Public Library - New Building Front

Pell City Library will welcome guest musicians, Debbie Bond and Rick Asherson in concert on Wednesday, Jan. 18 at noon. Expect the best of the blues and more from this talented duo who has made it their mission to ensure that the blues music, and its history, is celebrated, recognized and remembered. Blues music has been at the root of many popular music genres including jazz, rhythm and blues, rock ‘n’ roll and country music.

Debbie Bond was the co-founder, and for many years the Executive Director, of the Alabama Blues Project, an award-winning organization founded in 1995 to promote and preserve Alabama’s outstanding blues heritage.

This singer, guitar player and songwriter has played with many of the older, traditional Alabama blues musicians for over 30 years, including Johnny Shines, Eddie Kirkland, and Willie King in clubs, schools, and on festival stages. Her performance and association with mentor, Johnny Shines actually inspired the creation of the Alabama Blues Project. Bond made her musical debut in West Africa where she lived as a child with her anthropologist mother, and formed her first band in Brighton, England while attending college. In addition to her talent in music, Bond, is also an award-winning videographer who worked for Tuscaloosa-based Alabama Public Television. Many of the independent projects that she worked on there, in the 1980’s, are archived at the Smithsonian Institute. More recently, she has presented live showcases of Alabama blues women. Her blues background has greatly influenced her musical style, richly flavoring her guitar playing, soulful voice, and musical writing. However, her sound is also contemporary, embracing blues rock, soul and country. This unique synthesis is evidenced in her music albums, What Goes Around, Comes Around; Hearts Are Wild, That Thing Called Love, and her latest release, Enjoy the Ride which came out in 2016.

Rick Asherson has played harmonica, guitar, and piano since the 1960s in his native city of London, England. Since his move to Alabama in 2001, he has played keyboards and the harmonica with such blues greats as Willie King, Caroline Shines, Eddie Kirkland, Little Jimmy Reed, and B.J. Miller. He has a background vocationally in computer programming, osteopathy, and non-profit administration. Asherson served as Assistant Director of the Alabama Blues Project from 2003 until 2011. His skill in grant-writing greatly enhanced the growth of the Alabama Blue Project, as did his creation and development of the Alabama Blues Project’s educational program, curriculum, and traveling exhibitions. He continues to instruct with the Alabama Blue Project’s award-winning after school programs and residencies.

Together, Debbie and Rick performed at the 19th Annual Freedom Creek Festival in Aliceville, Alabama in honor of the late, great Willie King, then toured throughout the summer in the UK, France and Ireland, performing at various blues clubs, taverns, and festivals, including the Ealing Blues Festival—the biggest dedicated blues event in Britain, and for the “Fenetre sur Jardin” at the Jardin les Leliades, in France. Debbie Bond and Rick Asherson will combine their musical expertise in concert at the Pell City Library on Wednesday, Jan. 18 at noon, for the library’s Wild and Wonderful Wednesday series. The event is free and open to the public and light refreshments will be served afterwards.