Since the mid-1960s, when Paul Geremia committed fully to his craft, the Rhode Island-based acoustic blues and folksinger has earned his living solely through performances and recordings. An Italian-American raised in Providence, Rhode Island—the same city that launched Roomful of Blues, Duke Robillard, and other notable blues artists—he spent his childhood in a family that relocated repeatedly across the United States, an upbringing that deepened his fascination with music, history, and movement. Like countless peers of his era, Geremia first encountered classic blues at a folk festival when he witnessed Mississippi John Hurt during a topical songs workshop at the 1963 Newport Folk Festival, an encounter that reshaped his musical path; that same year the festival also featured Peter LaFarge, Phil Ochs, Pete Seeger, and Bob Dylan.
Around this period he immersed himself in the study of the blues and the harmonica, his initial instrument of choice. By the mid-1960s he observed that audiences were labeling the material he performed as “folk music.” He took up guitar while briefly enrolled at an agricultural college, yet soon departed to pursue the existence of an itinerant bluesman, securing steady work at coffeehouses in college towns. Over time he developed close ties and performed alongside numerous veteran blues figures, among them Babe Stovall, Yank Rachel, Son House, Skip James, Howlin’ Wolf, and, most significantly, Carolina bluesman Pink Anderson, whose later resurgence owed much to Geremia’s advocacy.
In 1966 Geremia relocated to Cambridge, Massachusetts, attracted by the vibrant activity at Club 47, where he joined the circle of musicians who both performed and absorbed the scene. The storied venue regularly presented traditional folk artists from across the nation, encompassing both male and female blues performers. His visibility has grown through a sustained association with the reliable independent imprint Red House Records of Minneapolis, whose roster also features acoustic blues and folk artists such as Guy Davis and John Gorka. The recordings most readily obtainable on that label comprise Love, Murder and Mosquitos, The Devil’s Music, Live from Uncle Sam’s Backyard, Self Portrait in Blues, and Gamblin’ Woman Blues.
The Guitar Artistry of Paul Geremia: Six and Twelve-String Blues, a Vestapol DVD, captures his fingerpicking technique in performance and forms part of a series overseen by New Jersey-based roots music musician and impresario Stefan Grossman. Acoustic Guitar magazine has described Geremia as “one of the best country blues finger pickers ever.” Because of his deep passion and expertise, his concerts routinely incorporate vivid anecdotes about the classic blues figures he has known, many of whom have since passed. That genuine enthusiasm for his vocation is evident to audiences at every show, conveying an unmistakable sense of sincerity and authenticity. Throughout decades of appearances across the U.S., Canada, and Europe, he has simultaneously inspired a steady succession of younger, equally dedicated blues performers.
