Bluesman Selwyn Birchwood celebrates new album with Tallahassee show

Award-winning Florida bluesman Selwyn Birchwood, who helped close out the now-shuttered Bradfordville Blues Club with a sold-out show in March, is back in Tallahassee this month to promote his new album.

Birchwood will celebrate the June 9 release of his anticipated fourth Alligator Records album, "Exorcist," with a live performance at the House of Music in Tallahassee on Saturday, June 10.

The guitarist, lap steel player, songwriter and vocalist sets a course for the future of the blues with his visionary, original music. He calls it “Electric Swamp Funkin’ Blues,” a mix of blues, blistering, psychedelic-tinged rock, booty-shaking funk and sweet Southern soul, played and sung with fervor.

Tastemaker Americana music magazine No Depression says, “Selwyn Birchwood reaches back in the blues tradition to launch something out of this world.”

Exorcist will be available on purple vinyl LP, CD and at all popular streaming and download sites. The first single, the ripped-from-the-headlines howler FLorida Man, was released on May 9.

On "Exorcist," Birchwood delivers a musically adventurous album. Recorded in Florida and produced by Grammy Award-winner Tom Hambridge, each of the 13 detailed songs was written and arranged by Birchwood.

The soul-baring tracks hit with lasting rhymes and unexpected rhythms. Each twists its own tale, ranging from the love-gone-wrong "Horns Below Her Halo" to the love-gone-terrifying "Exorcist" to the autobiographical "Underdog."

According to Blues Music Magazine, “Selwyn Birchwood heralds a fresh, exciting new direction in the blues. Toe-tapping, hip-shaking, joyful and inviting…expansive and focused, exploratory and time-honored, but always original.”

Birchwood wins over an audience with his warm personality, as down-to-earth as his music is thought-provoking. When he sits down to play his lap steel, he takes the crowd to a whole other level, with the music exorcising any bad times and troubles.

Birchwood first hit the blues scene in 2011 with the self-released, self-produced FL Boy. After winning the 2013 International Blues Challenge in Memphis, Birchwood found doors swinging open. He took a step forward in 2014 with his Alligator Records debut album, "Don’t Call No Ambulance."

Rave reviews ran in publications from Rolling Stone to The Wall Street Journal, from The Chicago Tribune to The San Francisco Chronicle. The album won both the Living Blues Award and the Blues Music Award for Best New Artist Debut. He followed in 2016 with fan-favorite "Pick Your Poison" and, in 2021, with the groundbreaking "Living In A Burning House." He won the coveted BMA Song Of The Year Award for that album’s "I’d Climb Mountains."

Now, with "Exorcist," Selwyn Birchwood and his band are ready to deliver the new songs live to expanding, audiences, lifting spirits while banishing demons.

Asked what fans can expect when they see him, Birchwood replies, “My goal is to be sure you cannot listen passively. We’re going to make you dance, and we’re going to make you think.”

If you go

What: Blues guitarist Selwyn Birchwood

When: 8 p.m. Saturday, June 10

Where: House of Music Tallahassee, 2011 S. Monroe St.

Tickets: $18-$25; houseofmusictally.com

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Bluesman Selwyn Birchwood's introduces new album at Tallahassee show