{"id":19645,"date":"2025-10-24T23:01:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T23:01:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/19645\/"},"modified":"2025-10-24T23:01:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T23:01:11","slug":"selwyn-birchwood-plays-the-electric-swamp-funkin-blues-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/19645\/","title":{"rendered":"Selwyn Birchwood plays the \u2018Electric Swamp Funkin Blues\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n
\n
\n \/
\n
\n <\/a>
\n
\n
\n The guitarist\/vocalist\/songwriter among the artists who have taken the stage at a local blues mecca \u2014 the Buckingham Blues Bar <\/p>\n

1 \/ 6<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Renowned blues guitarist Selwyn Birchwood readies for a recent performance at the Buckingham Blues Bar. His band\u2019s debut album in 2014, \u201cDon\u2019t Call No Ambulance,\u201d won the Living Blues Award and the Blues Music Award for Best New Artist Debut. Two more albums followed; in 2016 they released \u201cPick Your Poison\u201d and in 2021 \u201cLiving In A Burning House.\u201d The single from that album \u201cI\u2019d Climb Mountains\u201d won the BMA Song of the Year Award.<\/p>\n

ED ZUMAR<\/p>\n

2 \/ 6<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Blues artist Selwyn Birchwood is center stage at a recent performance at the Buckingham Blues Bar.<\/p>\n

ED ZUMAR<\/p>\n

3 \/ 6<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Buckingham Blues Bar has attracted Blues greats like Selwyn Birchwood since the early 2000s.<\/p>\n

ED ZUMAR<\/p>\n

4 \/ 6<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Blues aficionados listen to Selwyn Birchwood at a recent performance at the Buckingham Blues Bar.<\/p>\n

ED ZUMAR<\/p>\n

5 \/ 6<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Tommy Lee Cook is the owner of the Buckingham Blues Bar which attracts well-known blues artists from around the country.<\/p>\n

ED ZUMAR<\/p>\n

ED ZUMAR<\/p>\n

6 \/ 6<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Judy and Scott Miller speak with bartender Cami Padilla. The Millers have listened to the Blues at Buckingham Blues Bar since they moved here from Orlando.<\/p>\n

ED ZUMAR<\/p>\n

<\/a>
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

[expand]<\/p>\n

close
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n <\/p>\n

Award-winning guitarist, vocalist and songwriter Selwyn Birchwood discovered his passion for the blues young.<\/p>\n

He was 13 when decided he wanted to play guitar so he bought himself one, taught himself to play by listening to rock music he heard on 1990s radio and, while he may not have known it then, that was the beginning of a brilliant music career. However it was when he heard a rock legend that he knew what path he would choose.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was just trying to play what was on the radio, trying to impress my friends but I got bored with it pretty quickly. Then I got hold of a Jimi Hendrix album which turned my world upside down,\u201d said Birchwood, who is from Tampa. \u201cI started chasing some sounds I wasn\u2019t familiar with and come to find out looking at his bio it\u2019s a lot of the blues sounds. He mentioned a lot of the guys like Muddy Waters, Elmore James, Albert King and Buddy Guy.<\/p>\n

The same week Birchwood heard about Buddy Guy he found out the blues legend was to perform at the House of Blues in Orlando where Birchwood was born and raised. He decided to check out the legend he just heard of.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just bought a ticket blindly. Anybody that saw Buddy Guy live knew what to expect. I had no idea. He is just such an absolute firebrand, just such a charismatic performer, an electrifying performer,\u201d said Birchwood. \u201cI said whatever this is, I don\u2019t know what this is, but whatever it is I want to learn it.\u201d<\/p>\n

As he did as a young boy listening to the radio in the \u201990s, Birchwood taught himself the blues by just \u201cchasing sounds.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI would go to the CD stores at that time and the blues section had like 10 CDs to choose from,\u201d Birchwood recalled. \u201cSo I just started to try to find all the people that people were talking about, looking at bios and history of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

His search introduced him to more legends of the blues such as Johnny Lee Hooker, Lightning Hopkins and B B King. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was just really trying to start a foundation the best that I could rather than what came before,\u201d said Birchwood. \u201cI got into later stuff after that but that is what I was really drawn to like Howlin\u2019 Wolf and those guys.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once he established a solid blues foundation he began to experiment with his own music and how he could take what he learned and make it his own.<\/p>\n

\u201cI eventually branched out to more electric, more modern stuff,\u201d said Birchwood. \u201cWith my music I try to mix it all up. I think with our music you\u2019d be hard pressed to find a band that sounds exactly like ours. A lot of people say, hey that doesn\u2019t sound like Muddy Waters. But we took what we learned and turned it into our own.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hard pressed indeed. By 2013 he and his band were beginning to be known. That year they took part in the 2013 International Blues Challenge in Memphis, Tenn. Not only did Birchwood\u2019s band take top honors over 150 other bands, he took home the honor of Albert King Guitarist of the Year Award. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat was the equivalent of winning the lottery,\u201d said Birchwood. \u201cWith so many bands and it\u2019s so subjective it\u2019s not sort of a matter of fact; it\u2019s a matter of fact that we did win it that year. I wouldn\u2019t say it opened doors but it did unlock doors. People were more willing to take a second look at me at that time. Instead of just being the weird afro, bare-footed guy from Florida, I was the weird afro, bare-footed guy from Florida that won the International Blues Challenge in 2013.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of those doors opened to Alligator Records, one of the pre-eminent producers of Blues music. <\/p>\n

They signed Birchwood and his band and in 2014 they released their debut album \u201cDon\u2019t Call No Ambulance.\u201d Rave reviews followed from such well-known publications as \u201cRolling Stone\u201d and the \u201cChicago Tribune\u201d and the \u201cWall Street Journal.\u201d The album won the Living Blues Award and the Blues Music Award for Best New Artist Debut.<\/p>\n

Two more albums followed; in 2016 they released \u201cPick Your Poison\u201d and in 2021 \u201cLiving In A Burning House.\u201d The single from that album \u201cI\u2019d Climb Mountains\u201d won the BMA Song of the Year Award.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel our sound has gotten bigger,\u201d said Birchwood. \u201cWith each album I feel my song writing is getting much stronger. Each one is better than the previous one. As long as that\u2019s the case I\u2019m happy with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Birchwood calls his electrifying style of blues the \u201cElectric Swamp Funkin Blues.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cElectric Swamp Funkin Blues means it\u2019s pieces of all of it man, all I learned,\u201d said Birchwood. \u201cYou know I was born and raised in Florida and my dream was always to take Chicago Blues, Delta Blues, Memphis Blues, Piedmont Blues, Texas Blues and all that stuff. I wanted there to be a Florida Blues,\u201d said Birchwood. \u201cThat is the sound I came up with, Electric Swamp Funkin Blues.<\/p>\n

Birchwood has performed in 23 countries since 2013. They perform approximately 150 shows a year, including a recent Friday at the Buckingham Blues Bar.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m scared to stop working, \u201d said Birchwood. \u201cI see people start to take it easy. I\u2019m worried about taking it easy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Birchwood draws inspiration from other musicians he admires. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s so easy to get ears on other people now there\u2019s always someone doing something, there\u2019s a lot of stuff out there,\u201d said Birchwood. \u201cI\u2019m always in the head space of trying to write music. That\u2019s what I pride myself on, trying to write songs, hopefully find sounds that I call my own sound. I feel like at this point we do have our own sound. It is different every time, though. It could be something I experienced in my life, sometimes it\u2019ll be just an emotion that is interesting. I\u2019ll hear someone say something that I think is interesting. I\u2019ll see someone else go through something I think I could relate to and other people could relate to. It is always the argument I would have with girlfriends, ex-girlfriends. I don\u2019t write just autobiographically. Something in a song doesn\u2019t necessarily mean it\u2019s 100 percent true or 100 percent factual. It means that it makes me feel something that will make someone else feel something or relate to. I think that is what music is for. It\u2019s not a diary, sometimes it is but not all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

The current tour follows the release of the album Exorcist, his fifth studio release. A sixth album, songs from which he debuted at BBB, was recorded earlier this year and will be out soon. The title? \u201cElectric Swamp Funkin Blues.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \/ The guitarist\/vocalist\/songwriter among the artists who have taken the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19646,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210],"class_list":["post-19645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19645\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}