2018 Levitt National Tour

 

2018 Levitt National Tour

Paul Thorn and Blind Boys of Alabama

In summer 2018, the Levitt National Tour returned with a one-of-a-kind artist collaboration featuring Southern raconteur Paul Thorn and GRAMMY-winning gospel royalty, Blind Boys of Alabama!

About the Tour


The 2018 Levitt National Tour featured acclaimed singer-songwriter Paul Thorn and his five-piece band, teaming up with five-time GRAMMY-winning Gospel legends, Blind Boys of Alabama, for a one-of-a-kind musical collaboration. The Tour followed on the heels of the 2017 Levitt National Tour, which featured Gulf Coast Soul sensation The Suffers, and previous Levitt National Tours featuring genre-busting violin outfit Black Violin (2015) and the world-music fusion of Playing For Change (2014). 2018 Levitt National Tour audiences across the country experienced exhilarating, soulful shows blending old-school gospel with rock, blues and country.

About Blind Boys of Alabama


“One of the great groups of American roots music.” —WMOT 89.5 FM

Blind Boys of Alabama are recognized worldwide as living legends of gospel music. Celebrated by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS) with Lifetime Achievement Awards, inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame, and winners of five GRAMMY® Awards, they have attained the highest levels of achievement in a career that spans almost 80 years.

Blind Boys are known for crossing multiple musical boundaries with their remarkable interpretations of everything from traditional gospel favorites to contemporary spiritual material by songwriters such as Eric Clapton, Prince and Tom Waits. They have appeared on recordings with many artists, including Lou Reed, Peter Gabriel, Bonnie Raitt, Willie Nelson, Aaron Neville, Susan Tedeschi, Ben Harper, Patty Griffin and Taj Mahal. Blind Boys of Alabama have appeared on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno, Late Night with David Letterman, The Grammy Awards, 60 Minutes, The Colbert Report and many other television shows.

 

 

About Paul Thorn


“Paul Thorn is a natural-born Southern storyteller with humble stage banter and musical delivery.” —NPR Weekend Edition

Paul Thorn has created an innovative and impressive career, pleasing crowds with his muscular brand of roots music – bluesy, rocking and thoroughly Southern American, yet also speaking universal truths. Raised in Tupelo, Miss., among the same spirits (and some of the actual people) who nurtured the young Elvis generations before, Thorn has rambled down back roads and jumped out of airplanes, worked for years in a furniture factory, battled four-time world champion boxer Roberto Duran on national television, signed with and been dropped by a major label, performed on stages with Bonnie Raitt, Mark Knopfler, Sting, and John Prine among many others, and made some of the most emotionally restless yet fully accessible music of our time. He’s also appeared on major television shows such as Late Night with Conan O’Brien and Jimmy Kimmel Live!, been the subject of numerous National Public Radio (NPR) features and charted multiple times on the Billboard Top 100 and Americana Radio Charts.

 

Read more about the 2018 Levitt National Tour in reVerb, the Levitt blog.

Tour Artists

2024

The War and Treaty

2023

La Santa Cecilia

2022

The New Respects

2019

Flor De Toloache

2018

Paul Thorn and Blind Boys of Alabama

2017

The Suffers

2015

Black Violin

2014

Playing For Change