The first thing you think when you hear Steve Cheseborough speak might well be, “Where does a man with a voice like that get off calling himself a bluesman?”
Cheseborough is a balding fellow with glasses, hovering around fifty, but you have to travel to the Mississippi Delta to find a musician who can deliver the time-honored, gut bucket, eat your heart out blues music with the same lazy authenticity.
The first time I saw him was in a performance at Portland’s Central Library, and he delivered a Sonny Boy Williamson number all alone with just harmonica and tamborine. I marveled that I had finally found someone who could deliver in real life the same wry and careless attitude that I heard on scratchy 1920’s recordings of lonesome black men.
Steve Cheseborough is a bluesman with no reservations. He says in this Oregon Art Beat profile that he feels like “an exile from the Delta living here in the Northwest.” The Northwest is damned lucky to be able to grant the man asylum. You should go hear Steve Cheseborough on Sunday evening at Virgo & Pisces Restaurant–he’s playing for free, but you’re going to want to tip him well.
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Steve Cheseborough
Sunday, November 22, 6 p.m. Free.
Virgo & Pisces Restaurant / 500 NW 21st Street / Portland, OR
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