By Candice Ludlow
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Memphis – The frigid chill is not keeping people away from the International Blues Challenge on Beale Street this week. One-hundred-ten bands and 83 solo/duo acts from around the world are competing for their chance to make it big.
Candice Ludlow went to Mr. Handy's Blues Hall Wednesday night to catch a 17-year-old prodigy from a small town in Ohio.
I push through the crush of people to get to the front of the stage to catch the young man who's creating a buzz in the blues world.
"My name is Micah Kesselring and I'm going to do a tune called Hoodoo Woman Blues," he said.
Kesselring's playing a slide guitar and a kick-peddle drum that his dad made out of an old wooden Coca Cola crate. He also has a cigar box guitar onstage.
Kesselring taught himself how to play guitar when he was 9. Then a few years later, he discovered the blues.
"My dad turned me onto some Led Zeppelin stuff, and I started learning a lot of that, and I started looking through the liner notes and see Traveling Riverside Blues, R. Johnson." Kesselring continues. "That's not Jimmy Page or Robert Plant. I started researching that. I was around about 14 so, and I heard Robert Johnson. That was it. That did it for me."
For Kesselring, there's nothing like the Blues.
"I like how passionate it is, and how expressive it is," Kesselring says. "It all comes out through the blues. You know, it's true, pure art form."
It's hard to believe that Kesselring's only 17, and this is his third time at the IBC's. The first time was three years ago when he played in the Youth Showcase.
"I was awarded scholarship to the Port Townsend Acoustic Blues, and I presented that at the band finals. That was a pretty life-changing achievement," Kesselring explains. Yes, it was. He met Otis Taylor in Port Townsend, and has since played with Taylor at the prestigious Blues Music Awards in Memphis last year.
And Kesselring's talents don't end with playing.
He's also a songwriter. He says, "I try to write about 60 percent (of the songs I play in) my gigs. What I did earlier was all originals," Kesselring explains. "I've probably got 12 or 13 originals. When I do a gig, I like to mix in some Son House or Robert Lockwood, Jr., or Skip James, Blind Willie Nelson, is always good."
This year, like last, he's competing in the solo/duo category, and doing what he loves most, playing the blues.
Tonight, the competition moves to the next stage - the semi-finals, in the clubs down on Beale. Micah Kesselring made the semi-finals. The final competitions are Saturday at the Orpheum Theatre.