Page 83 - Blues Festival Guide Magazine 2019

Beverly sure plays a mean guitar.
Photo by Tim Duffy
the 1980s. Then, Beverly got
connected with Eddie Tigner,
an original member of the
Ink Spots and a mainstay of
the Atlanta music scene. By
the late ‘80s, in addition to
her domestic jobs during the
day, Beverly played the night
clubs, especially the Atlanta
Underground. “I paid my
dues in the Underground,”
Watkins remembers.. “Sometimes I would go down there and I
would only make $30 or $40, but I didn’t stop.”
In spite of all of her crowd-pleasing antics, Beverly had a hard
time breaking into the mainstream until she was re-discovered by
the folks at the Music Maker Relief Foundation. From 1997 to
1999, Music Maker Relief Foundation founder and photographer
Timothy Duffy booked Beverly on the 42–city Winston Blues
Revival Tour alongside blues heroes like Taj Mahal, along with
other unseen and under-appreciated blues acts like the blind
bluesman Cootie Stark, and the one-armed harmonica player
Neal Pattman. Through Beverly, Music Maker was introduced to
an entire community of blues legends from Atlanta, of which many
partnerships still exist today. Beverly on tour with fellow Music Maker artists Cootie Stark (lt) and Neal Pattman (rt).
Photo by Tim Duffy
“I met Beverly playing on the streets of the Atlanta
underground and have seen her receive standing ovations at
Lincoln Center and festivals throughout Europe and Australia,” of the blues with her unmatched charisma and technical prowess
says Duffy. “She’s the greatest guitar-pickin’ grandma alive on her guitar night after night. If you have the opportunity to
and exemplifies a critical and all-too-hidden part of our musical catch Beverly on stage this summer, you won’t be disappointed.
history – the fact that women shaped the sound of the blues just
as much as men did.” Jed Finley first joined Music Maker as an intern in the summer of
In addition to the Winston Blues Revival, Music Maker has 2017. After earning his bachelor’s degree at Yale University in
booked hundreds of performances for Beverly in Europe and 2018, Jed returned to Music Maker to coordinate performance
Australia to share her unique style with an international audience. and exhibition programming.
The Foundation also released her four albums, capturing the
breadth of her style, from gospel to hard blues. Her W.C. Handy
Award-winning debut album, Back in Business, was released in
1999, featuring a sound Watkins refers to as “hard classic blues,
hard stompin’ blues, you know... railroad smokin’ blues.” Since
then, she has also released The Feelings of Beverly “Guitar”
Watkins (2005), Don’t Mess With Miss Watkins (2007) and The
Spiritual Expressions of Beverly “Guitar” Watkins (2009).
Recently the spotlight on this American musical gem has
shined even more brightly through a CNN Great Big Story
piece that ran in 2017 and a recent viral video of Miss Watkins
shredding at a school in Atlanta – both videos have several
million views!
Today, at 80 years old, Beverly enjoys a revitalized career,
playing with her band and teaching young women around the
world how to rock better than any man. She remains a force to be
reckoned with on and off the stage, demonstrating her mastery Beverly “Guitar” Watkins is known for her crowd-pleasing antics. Photo by Tim Duffy

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