David Whitaker - Jackson Coffee Company

David Whitaker at Jackson Coffee Company

Windsor, Ontario bluesman David Whitaker started performing in the 1960s, at first playing "folk" music in the cabarets of Tokyo, then in the coffeehouses of Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Cleveland and Akron. In 1970 he moved to Canada and was a regular on the Hamilton-Toronto circuit, playing such venues as Campell's Coffeehouse, Fiddler's Green and local festivals. In the mid �70s life got in the way, he dropped out of music and moved to Windsor. In 1997, after 23 years of playing hardly at all, David began performing again, shifting his repertoire toward his first musical love � acoustic blues and ragtime. He still throws in an occasional old-style country tune and an even rarer pop tune that's worth it, but mostly it's blues in the Piedmont style on 6- and 12-string Guilds and a National steel guitar. David got hooked on blues after close encounters with masters such as Josh White, Mance Lipscomb and Brownie McGhee. He has studied guitar with more contemporary greats such as Paul Geremia, John Cephas, slide whiz Steve James and the late John Jackson. In recent years David has been enthusiastically received at pubs, coffeehouses, concerts and festivals in the Detroit-Windsor area, elsewhere in Michigan and as far south as North Carolina. David's first CD � a 20-song effort called Blues, Beans & Botherations, released in January '07 � has had considerable air play at radio stations in both The U.S. and Canada.