Don’t miss the ‘King of Estonian blues’

Listed in the book 100 Years of Estonian Music as the country’s ‘Internationally best-known player of pure blues’ and dubbed ‘the king of Estonian blues’ by the press, Andres Roots (his real name!) is a slide guitarist and a songwriter based in Tartu, Estonia whose music has received airplay on five continents and who has performed live everywhere from Clarksdale, Mississippi to Hell, Norway. In 2023, Roots became an official ambassador of the European Capital of Culture Tartu 2024.

Born in Tallinn, Estonia in 1976, Roots’ international breakthrough came with the alt.blues trio Bullfrog Brown in 2005. The first and only time a blues album has claimed the #1 spot in the Baltics came in 2016 when Roots’ Roots Music LP topped the official Estonian album chart, earning him a Golden Disc award. A regular guest in the Top 10 of both the French and the British blues airplay charts, Roots received a “Bluesman of the Year” award from the UK-based Severn FM’s The Blues Hour programme in 2018 just as he had started focussing on the solo guitar work that fills his more recent albums, most recently Vol. 12 (2023).

Andres Roots’ influences go much deeper than roots blues, covering Django-style gypsy jazz, flamenco blues and fast-fingered dexterity, each as intricate in compositional craft as performance skill.

“It’s almost as if muddy waters were flowing into the Gulf of Riga.”

Ted Gioia, The Honest Broker, USA

“Andres is a master of this kind of music.”

Norman Darwen, Blues in Britain

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