Ryan Lee Crosby in Concert and Conversation

Ryan Lee Crosby is currently based in Rhode Island, but his musical heart is in Mississippi. He has released numerous albums, toured internationally and is a leading practitioner of the Bentonia School of rural Delta blues, as well as a world music explorer. Smithsonian Magazine praised his ability to “bring influences from Africa and India to the Bentonia sound.”

Crosby’s new album “At the Blue Front” (featuring Grammy nominated bluesman Jimmy “Duck” Holmes) offers a haunting, hypnotic meld of Bentonia and Hill Country blues. Recorded on reel to reel tape over two afternoons at Holmes’ iconic Mississippi juke joint, the album was produced, recorded and mixed by Crosby, with a selection of original compositions, traditional repertoire and fully improvised songs.

Crosby finds deep inspiration and spiritual refuge in Bentonia, where he has been mentored for six years by Holmes, the man who is widely regarded as the last living master of the style. Blending reverence for tradition with a modern, trance-inducing approach, Crosby’s process is informed by diverse influences that include Indian raga, ambient music and post-punk rock. For Crosby, all these seemingly disparate threads weave together through the meditative power of the blues.