Jeff Lang plus Guests - Keller Sessions

Canberra Blues Society proudly presents Jeff Lang & guests for a very special Keller Sessions Show as part of Capital Vintage Guitars Expo.

Doors open: 6.30pm Show starts: 7pm

Melbourne based guitarist-songwriter-vocalist-producer, Jeff Lang has built a reputation for making startling music that is accomplished, intricate, gutsy, melodic and loaded with soul. Often taking unexpected turns, he has consistently inspired his audiences by creating a stylistically diverse catalogue of over 30 albums.

As many journalists have written over the years, Jeff is not one to be easily pegged, though in a general sense it’s fair to say he largely trades in roots-oriented rock; wider reaching in collaborations with the likes of roving guitar anthropologist Bob Brozman, American blues-rocker Chris Whitley, India’s desert-dwellers Maru Tarang and world music virtuosos Bobby Singh and Mamadou Diabate. Jeff’s work with the latter won the 2010 ARIA for Best World Music Album, while he and Brozman took one home for Best Blues and Roots Music Album in 2002. Jeff received that same award on his own in 2012 for the album ‘Carried In Mind’.

Jeff has delivered show-stopping performances at festivals across the globe: The Dublin Blues Festival, Philadelphia Folk Festival, Quebec City Music Festival, Falcon Ridge Folk Festival, Winterhawk Bluegrass Festival, Fuji Rock, Glastonbury, Echo Park China, Ottawa BluesFest as well as on his home turf at Port Fairy, Woodford, Bluesfest Byron Bay and Womadelaide. He has shared stages with Bob Dylan, Dr. John, Richard Thompson, Bonnie Raitt, Ani Di Franco, Chris Whitley, Albert Collins, Loudon Wainwright III, Greg Brown, John Butler, AR Rahman and Bob Geldorf, among many others.
In 2021 Jeff published his first book – “Some Memories Never Die” – a memoir of three decades on the road; Memories of gigs where the pay was akin to blood money, reflections on how the road’s twists and turns can be lightened by the presence of fellow travellers and occasionally darkened by them too.

Never one to stand still - even in the face of some of the longest lockdowns in the world -Jeff devised a new project at home with his partner Alison Ferrier. That project, High Ace, released their debut album in 2022 and Jeff also released an album of instrumental 12 string guitar music in May 2023. Jeff is currently in the throes of recording another extraordinary major release slated for release early 2024.

“Jeff Lang is, in my humble opinion, a national treasure, a truly gifted songwriter and an outstanding guitarist. He has been inspiration to countless Australian and internationally renowned roots artists and surely has a place in history as one of this generation’s finest. He has really touched me and musically, I had a kind of revelation…” - John Butler, John Butler Trio

Guest supports:
- SKIP SAIL 7 - 7:30pm The mysterious Skip Sail is an enigma of the Australian music scene. Little is known about his life and his aversion to publicity means sightings in the wild are infrequent, but those who know say he plays blues guitar like the real deal.

- LEZ KARSKI 7:45 - 8:15pm Lez Karski has been the unique soul/blues guitar and vocal style of The Foreday Riders, Hippos, Bondi Cigars, Donkeys, and The Nervous Investors. He’s also the preferred sideman for visiting US Blues artists. The late great Johnny Johnson, Chris Cain, Kenny ‘Blues Boss’ Wayne, Diunna Greenleaf, Barbara Blue and Kyla Brox have all chosen Lez as guitar man for their Oz tours. A regular at the Bridgetown and Narooma Blues festivals, Lez played at the Byron Bay Festival with the Bondi Cigars and later with Johnny Johnson.

- JEFF LANG 8:30 - 10:00pm