Tom Page is a guitarist and songwriter based in Wichita Kansas.  He has spent the last 20 years traveling the country making a living as an itinerate folk musician.  Tom is the product of the Mid-western cultural movement of the 1970s growing up in this environment allowed him access to many of the great folk artists of the time and sparked his interest in the roots of American music.  Tom continues to play and sing around the nation with his band ‘Haymakers’, with his ‘Tom Page trio’ or as a solo or as a hired gun for other regional players.  This program is derived from Tom’s experiences as a blind American musician.

 

 

From Blind Boys to Bluesmen

 

“As I have had the fortune to travel and meet all kinds of people in the music business as well as other blind people I began to become aware of the great economic disadvantages faced by most of us.  I began volunteering with the National Federation of the Blind and through those experiences began to understand the historical background and continuing social problems facing blind people today.  I began seriously studying the music made by the blind and how it has changed with society…”

 

Program Description

 

This program will inform the audience of the conditions that created the cultural phenomena of the “blind bluesman”.  With story and song, Tom will journey from the late nineteenth century to the present.  The stories will serve to highlight the evolution of the possibilities available to blind Americans. How blindness skills (cane travel, braille literacy, etc…) have allowed some blind persons past and present to explore their dreams.

 

The question of why blind musicians moved from blind boys to bluesmen is answered through a discussion of the integration and civil rights movements of the 20th century.  Stories of blind aviators inform us of the length some have gone to pursue their dreams.  The audience is left to ponder how blind Americans will further integrate and improve our social conditions in the future