$18 in advance $20 at the door
Hubby Jenkins is an acclaimed soloist who explores the history of Americana music through the lens of the African-Americans who helped create it.
A talented multi-instrumentalist who plays guitar, banjo, and bones, and sings with a rich tenor voice, Jenkins was an integral part of the Grammy award-winning Carolina Chocolate Drops from 2010 to 2014. From 2015 to 2018 he was active as a touring and recording member of the Rhiannon Giddens band. Since then, he has pursued a solo career with performances around the world including the 2023 Smithsonian Folklife Festival.
Jenkins was born and raised in Brooklyn, where his parents filled the house with blues, salsa, soul, and the Beatles. At 13, he heard retro singer-songwriter Lenny Kravitz for the first time. It was a revelation: a young black artist not rapping or playing soul or funk.“ It opened up this whole thing for me, this idea of what black people could be in pop culture,” Jenkins said. He began perfecting his guitar and vocal craft on the sidewalks and subway platforms of New York City and then took his show on the road, playing the streets, coffee houses, bars, and house parties of cities around the U.S.
In creating his own musical identity, Jenkins followed the thread of African American history that weaves itself through America’s traditional music forms, specifically of the string music most frequently associated with white musicians in the South.
“I like to describe my music as traditional American music,” Jenkins states. “I like to play blues, rags, banjo and fiddle tunes, gospel, early country, and jazz. There are stories behind a lot of the songs I play that illuminate dark and hidden parts of our history and connect to the current context of African Americans today.”
He shares these stories and his love of old-time American music through his dynamic solo performances, festival appearances, and engaging workshops.
“[Jenkins]brilliantly exemplifies the commonality of the new generation of African American songsters, in spirit and music: intelligent, articulate, well-educated in the history of the music, energetic and exciting, with something important to say lyrically – all with virtuosic instrumental skills.” --Frank Matheis, Living Blues Magazine.