Singer-songwriter-guitarist Toshi Reagon will perform her unique blend of rock, blues, folk, and spirituals on Tuesday, January 21 at 7:30 p.m. at the Weis Center for the Performing Arts. This is a free performance and tickets are not required.
The performance is sponsored, in part, by Bucknell University’s Department of Music, Jazz @ Bucknell and Martin Luther King Jr. Week 2020.
Described by Vibe magazine as “one helluva rock’n’roller-coaster ride” and by Pop Matters as “a treasure waiting to be found,” Reagon is a one-woman celebration of all that’s dynamic, progressive and uplifting in American music.
Since first taking to the stage at age 17, this versatile singer-songwriter-guitarist has moved audiences of all kinds with her big hearted, hold-nothing back approach to rock, blues, R&B, country, folk, spirituals and funk.
The New York Times described her blend as “…a love of mixing things up…[her] vocal style ranges from a dirty blues moan to a gospel shout to an ethereal croon.”
Over nearly 30 years, Reagon has collaborated with top innovators across a wide spectrum of the entertainment field. Since Lenny Kravitz chose her, straight out of college, to open for him on his first world tour, she has gone on to share stages with notable colleagues such as Nona Hendryx, Elvis Costello, Ani DiFranco, Pete Seeger, Dar Williams, Lizz Wright, Me’shell Ndegé Ocello and Marc Anthony Thompson (aka Chocolate Genius). Her performances with her mother, Bernice Johnson Reagon–civil rights activist and founder of the a cappella group, Sweet Honey in the Rock–are legendary.
Some of Reagon’s proudest moments have included playing for her godfather Pete Seeger’s 90th birthday celebration at Madison Square Garden (2009), a benefit for Seeger’s environmental organization, Clearwater. She has also performed with the Freedom Singers at the White House in President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama’s tribute to the music of the civil rights movement.
Reagon’s honors include a 2009 Out Music Award, the 2007 Black Lily Award for Outstanding Performance, and a 2004 New York Foundation for the Arts award for music composition. She was one of several women honored by the National Women’s History Project for “amazing intelligence, talent, courage and tenacity [that testify] to the myriad ways that generations of women have moved history forward.”
For more information about this free performance contact Lisa Leighton, marketing and outreach director, at 570-577-3727 or lisa.leighton@bucknell.edu.