2. All is Blues Festival Würzburg - Michael van Merwyk Trio (D) // Andrea de Luca (I)

In the organizer's words:

2nd All is Blues Festival Würzburg on 14./15.11.2025

Friday 14.11.2025 from 19:30 hrs

Double concert:

Michael van Merwyk Trio (D) // Andrea de Luca (I)

Admission Box Office: 45 Euro

Advance booking: day ticket 40 euros // 2-day ticket 70 euros incl. VAT plus advance booking fees

Further information about the All is Blues Festival: https://www.all-is-blues-festival.de/

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Michael van Merwyk Trio - Blues without borders

A songster is something like a predecessor of the bluesman, with one important difference: he doesn't just play the blues, but anything he wants - and that's exactly what Michael van Merwyk has been doing since he picked up the guitar at the age of 15. Genre boundaries don't matter. Songsters such as Mississippi John Hurt, Big Bill Broonzy and Leadbelly played for every audience and had the right sound for every situation. Michael van Merwyk follows in their tradition:

"My school was pubs, clubs and parties. I sing songs and tell stories. I usually play my own compositions, but I also play my own versions of other musicians' songs. A good song is a good song". For 40 years now, the two-metre tall man has been on the road when it comes to blues, etc. and has traveled quite a bit in the process - from the streets of Memphis to the stages of Moscow, and from the vastness of Scandinavia to the Canary Islands. At the "Alll is Blues" festival, he and his trio will be stopping off in Würzburg for the first time.

Over the course of his long career, van Merwyk has jammed with blues legends such as Jimmy Rogers, Larry Garner and Jimmy Johnson, has been invited to numerous renowned festivals and has played on CDs by Larry Garner and Big Daddy Wilson, among others. In 2011, he took first place in the German Blues Challenge with his Bluesoul project. This was followed in 2013 by a second place as the first European band at the International Blues Challenge in Memphis/USA. In 2016, the jury and audience voted him Germany's best blues singer and best blues guitarist at the German Blues Awards.

And of course the virtuoso (slide) guitarist and singer Michael van Merwyk has also recorded numerous CDs. His latest production is called "Blues everywhere I go" and was released in 2024. Recorded in Hamburg and Bielefeld, the new studio album, which features well-known musicians from the German blues scene such as Abi Wallenstein, Martin Röttger, Georg Schroeter and Marc Breitfelder, offers an eclectic mix of mostly self-composed blues pieces.

Artist homepage: https://www.bluesoul.de/

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Andrea de Luca - Maestro of the lapsteel guitar

Music from Italy: in this country, the first thing that comes to mind is emotional operas with world-famous arias, Italo disco-pop or the immortal world hit "Azzurro" by Adriano Celentano. Which brings us to the topic. Azzurro means (sky) blue in German. And blue tones, i.e. blues, can also be found in the music on offer in Bella Italia, as we want to show in this year's edition of "All is Blues".

We are not referring to the omnipresent "father of Italian blues", Zucchero, who fills the biggest halls and stadiums with his soft blues. Because if you are looking for authentic and lively blues in Italy, you can find it. For example with singer and guitarist Andrea de Luca, who will be traveling directly from Rome to the All is Blues Festival with his band.

In addition to his distinctive singing voice, de Luca's trademark is the lapsteel guitar - played acoustically or amplified electrically, it characterizes many of his songs. A brief digression: the instrument was originally used in Hawaiian music, which is why it has become known in this country as the Hawaiian guitar. The term lapsteel guitar is explained by the fact that it is played while sitting on the player's thighs (lap means hip). For this reason, it cannot be fingered in the conventional way, but a metal tube is moved back and forth on the strings from above to produce the typical "singing" glissando tones. This style of playing also found its way into the blues as the "bottleneck" style. This is because early blues players often did not have a metal tube at their disposal, which is why they made do with a broken-off bottleneck.

Andrea de Luca's live performances are bursting with energy, and he makes no secret of the fact that Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Johnny Winter and Ben Harper are among his sources of inspiration, whose playing techniques he analyzed and absorbed at a young age. In the meantime, his own style has matured to such an extent that he publishes his own lap steel instruction videos.

His mission: he wants to convey his passion for the blues to an ever wider audience - and he wants to do so with all his heart and soul! You can find out what he means by this at his performance at All is Blues on November 14.

Artist homepage: https: //www.delucablues.com/