On Friday, Sept. 9 at 7:30 p.m. in the Deane Center’s Coolidge Theatre at 104 Main Street in Wellsboro, the 75th season of the Wellsboro Community Concert Association will open with a concert presented by Rory Block, the best acoustic blues artist performing today.

On her “Prove it on Me” CD released in 2020, Block breathes fresh life into Ma Rainey’s version of the title cut and Memphis Minnie’s “In My Girlish Days,” with a clarion call torn from the headlines.

A formidable slide guitarist and talented singer/songwriter whose originals ring with power and truth, Block has released 36 albums, earned multiple Blues Music Awards, and performed on numerous world tours. “Today, she is widely regarded as the top female interpreter and authority on traditional country blues worldwide,” according to The Blues Foundation, an American nonprofit corporation affiliated with more than 175 blues organizations in the world.

Block finds the common denominator in the many different early American roots blues styles and experiences she sings about, whether they are songs by legacy artists like Son House, Robert Johnson, or Bessie Smith or her own originals.

She spent her childhood in Manhattan surrounded by musicians like John Sebastian, John Hammond and Maria Muldaur who frequented her dad’s Saturdayafternoon jam sessions. Her father, an influential country fiddle player, ran a sandal shop in Greenwich Village at the height of the folk music revival of the early 1960s.

Block cut her first album in 1961 at 12, backing her father on “The Elektra String Band Project,” a folk concept album featuring many of the musicians who were part of the folk revival.

At 14 in 1963, she met guitarist Stefan Grossman who introduced her to the music of Mississippi Delta blues guitarists, such as Mississippi John Hurt, Rev. Gary Davis, Son House, Skip James, Mississippi Fred McDowell, and Bukka White, all of whom she later honored with her Mentor Series. Block listened to and transcribed their old albums and learned to play their songs on guitar.

Block went to the Davis home in Harlem where a handful of students, including David Bromberg, Roy Bookbinder and Woody Mann, took lessons. Davis would play at full speed, never stopping. Students had to keep up, which was the way players learned in the early days.

At 15, she left home to seek out Delta blues giants on the west coast.

After raising a family, Block returned to the music industry in the 1970s, signed with Rounder Records in 1981 and created her own niche, releasing numerous critically acclaimed albums of original and traditional songs.

The Wellsboro Community Concert Association is presenting six concerts for WCCA subscribers during its 2023-2024 season plus a seventh, Tusk, the world’s number one Fleetwood Mac tribute band.

All seven concerts will be at 7:30 p.m. in the Deane Center’s Coolidge Theatre in Wellsboro.

The general public can now purchase tickets for the Tusk concert on either Sept. 13 or 14 for $39. Students 18 and younger will not be admitted for a reduced price or for free.

The subscribers pass for adults 19 and older for WCCA’s six-concert series is $75 or $12.50 per concert, a $75 saving.

A subscriber’s pass for students, 13 to 18 for the six-concert series is $25 ($4.17 per concert), a $5 saving.

Youngsters 12 and under are admitted free to the six-concert series when accompanied by a paying adult.

Non-subscribers 19 and older can purchase tickets for the Tusk performances on Wednesday or Thursday. Sept. 13 or 14 for $39 and individual tickets for any of the six concerts in the series for $25 each.

Subscribers and non-subscribers can go to https://www.wellsborocca.org for a printable season ticket subscription form to buy a regular season subscription or for individual concert tickets online or stop in at the Deane Center office on the second floor at 104 Main Street in Wellsboro or call 570-724-6220. 

Checks should be made payable to the Wellsboro Community Concert Association and mailed with the printable order form to: WCCA, PO Box 453, Wellsboro, PA 16901. Order form tickets will be mailed before the season begins.

Or, arrive at the Deane Center 15 minutes before a performance. Admission at the door is $39 for a Tusk concert and $25 for an adult and $5 for a student 13 to 18 for one of the six WCCA concerts. All ticket sales at the door are on a first-come, first-served, space available basis.