Patrick Verbeke

Patrick Verbeke at the Paris Jazz Festival 2006

Patrick Verbeke is a French blues guitarist, composer and singer. He was born in 1949 in Calvados.

Biography

Patrick Verbeke has spent the past thirty-some-odd years helping to popularize the blues in France, through educational presentations at schools (illustrating his discourses on the history of the genre with pictorial displays and performances of a variety of blues songs and styles), a long and colorful career as a performer and recording artist, and as host of a popular show, Night Blues, dedicated to the blues the French radio network Europe 1.^[1] Highlights of his career include tours with French rock/pop idol Johnny Hallyday in 1976–1977; concerts with French blues harmonicist Benoît Blue Boy from 1978 to 1980; five years of performances with the legendary bluesman Luther Allison, from 1992 until the latter’s unfortunate demise in 1997; performing with such artists as Sonny Fisher, Gene Summers, Sugar Blue, Freddie King, Memphis Slim, Vince Taylor and Freddie Fingers Lee while they were on tour in France; and doing session work for such artists as David McNeal, Valerie Legrange, William Sheller, Yves Montand, and many others. Verbeke also co-founded Magic Blues, a record label dedicated to French artists playing and singing the blues in French, with Hélios Vidal in the late 1990s.^[1]

Discography

• Blues in my Soul (Underdog Records / Musidisc) 1981
• Tais-Toi et Rame / Bec Vert (Underdog Records / Musidisc) 1982 / 1985 (two complete albums re-released as a single CD)
• School Boy Blues (Arc en Ciel / Studio SM) 1990
• Blues & Ladies (Miss You / Studio SM – Night & Day) 1992
• Funky Francais (Odeon Records / EMI) 1996
• Willie et Louise conte “Bluesical” (Magic Blues – Arc en Ciel / Studio SM) 1998
• Monsieur Blues (Magic Blues – Mister Music / Wagram) 1998
• Y2K Blues – Blues de l’an 2000 (Magic Blues – Dixiefrog / Night & Day) 2000
• Echos d’Acadie (Magic Blues – Dixiefrog / Night & Day) 2004

References