Bertrand Laurence

From life as a Frenchman "exiled" in the USA, Bertrand Laurence has watched his musical dreams unfold.

Like many young guitarists, Laurence spent time in a rock band. ("For a couple of years I thought I was Keith Richards.") But even the Rolling Stones, he notes, grounded their music in acoustic blues. And he wanted to get to the source of that music and so he left France for America, to study in Boston at the Berklee College of Music.

The trials and tribulations of schooling were nothing compared to what he sought, and found, on the streets of America. He was one of the first artists to perform at Cambridge's original House of Blues and the haunts of New England. He recorded an all-instrumental album, *Mechanical Snake Blues. *Soon he was featured on NPR's "Blues Stage," prompting host Ruth Brown to comment, "The man sure has his way with the boogie." His travels to the American south showed him that the integration of blues based American Music (Zydeco, Swing, Jazz, Soul, Rock n roll) and the French language is a natural expression of diversity in places like Louisiana. A recent French tour showed that even demanding audiences can be more open to a Musical and Linguistic gumbo than we think. Johnny D's welcomes back one its favorites, Bertrand Laurence.

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