Music in the Air: Mulebone

Mulebone is a musical partnership comprised of multi-instrumentalist, John Ragusa and roots music specialist, Hugh Pool. The grist for their mill is traditional blues. Together Mulebone has recorded 5 critically lauded CDs and achieved AMA Top 100 with all. Their fouth CD "Keep on Movin" earned the distinction of being the only independent release in the AMA Top 40 for 6 weeks in 2015. Along with playing live and TV appearances, they won blues artist of the year at radio stations from Seattle, Washington to Red Bank, New Jersey and Hugh Pool was inducted into the New York Blues Hall of Fame in 2016. In Mulebone, John plays, conch shell, Jews harp, cornet, all manner of flutes, tin whistle, and chimes in on the harmony vocals. He is member of Beth Nielsen Chapman's group as well as his own John Ragusa outfit, and plays regularly in conjunction with Deepak Chopra's speaking engagements. Amongst dozens of studio credits are contemporary jazz greats Joe Taylor, Jeremy Wall and world music icon Tom Ze. He has played in clubs and at festivals from Jakarta, Indonesia to North Cape, Norway; From Vienna, Austria to Ottawa, Ontario and has been critically lauded by The New York Times, New York Press, The Village Voice, Pittsburgh Press, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Blues Revue Magazine...the list goes on. Together in Mulebone, Hugh and John play slide guitar boogies, 1 chord trance riffs a la Howlin Wolf the uptempo rags of Reverend Gary Davis and country blues of all shapes and colors. Sometimes they play close to the source, almost as if tracing the image, and at other moments, they re-examine the source, float above it, take a new look as one understanding their home from a distant land. The 2024 'Music in the Air' Summer Concert Series. Relax and enjoy free live music all summer long on the lawn of the Old Art Building. Our fourth season of Music in the Air summer concert series will consist of 12 bands, all with different music styles and moods. Don't forget to bring your lawn chairs or blankets!