Internationally-acclaimed guitar virtuoso Trace Bundy must be seen, not just heard. His music is poetry in motion, using harmonics, looping, multiple capos, and his unique banter and stage presence to deliver an unforgettable live concert experience. Listening to his intricate arrangements is one thing, but seeing the fan-dubbed “Acoustic Ninja” play live confounds even the most accomplished music lovers as to how one person can do all that with just two hands and ten fingers.
Bundy’s unique career has brought him across the world, with concerts in 28 countries and counting – from high-tech performance halls in South Korea and Italy, to remote villages in Zimbabwe and Guatemala. He has independently sold over 150,000 albums on his record label, Honest Ninja Music. His video clips circulate virally at astonishing speed, with over 45 million YouTube views to date.
Jimmy Leslie at Guitar Player Magazine blogs “It was easy to see why Bundy plays bigger venues on each tour. In his hands, the acoustic guitar is an imagination station, and there was no telling where he is going take the audience at any given turn. Thrilling stuff.”
Audiocast Magazine from Austin, TX agrees: “Bundy’s live show is without a doubt an event that needs to be witnessed rather than told about. With such a jaw-dropping performance, Bundy’s live concert is a slap in the face that would leave a palm print on the memory of everyone in the audience.”
LATE SHOW (8:30 PM)
Internationally-acclaimed guitar virtuoso Trace Bundy must be seen, not just heard. His music is poetry in motion, using harmonics, looping, multiple capos, and his unique banter and stage presence to deliver an unforgettable live concert experience. Listening to his intricate arrangements is one thing, but seeing the fan-dubbed “Acoustic Ninja” play live confounds even the most accomplished music lovers as to how one person can do all that with just two hands and ten fingers.
Bundy’s unique career has brought him across the world, with concerts in 28 countries and counting – from high-tech performance halls in South Korea and Italy, to remote villages in Zimbabwe and Guatemala. He has independently sold over 150,000 albums on his record label, Honest Ninja Music. His video clips circulate virally at astonishing speed, with over 45 million YouTube views to date.
Jimmy Leslie at Guitar Player Magazine blogs “It was easy to see why Bundy plays bigger venues on each tour. In his hands, the acoustic guitar is an imagination station, and there was no telling where he is going take the audience at any given turn. Thrilling stuff.”
Audiocast Magazine from Austin, TX agrees: “Bundy’s live show is without a doubt an event that needs to be witnessed rather than told about. With such a jaw-dropping performance, Bundy’s live concert is a slap in the face that would leave a palm print on the memory of everyone in the audience.”
Share your favorite poem and listen to others share theirs! Light refreshments, gift drawings, and roses for all. All ages are welcome and there is no admission fee. Early arrivals are welcome and would be appreciated to help set up.
Come hike and see the glory of the prairie in full bloom! A guide will lead you through the beautiful 1.5 mile Butterfly Hill trail (easy hike) located at the Konza headquarters area, not often open to the public. Join us for this one special night! This event is family friendly! Children are welcome, but with the terrain, strollers are not. Proceeds benefit the Friends of the Konza Prairie, which works to support the educational programs introducing K-12 students to ecology and beauty of the tallgrass prairie.
Free to the Friends of Konza Prairie Members. For others it’s just $10.
Come join family and friends to support neighbors in need. It’s the annual Nelson Family Community Foundation Benefit, on June 7th and 8th in Leonardville. The festivities begin Friday evening with a barbeque meal served from 5-7pm. A cornhole tournament starts at 6:30pm, with music provided by DJ Rick Stanley. There’s also a beer garden opening at 5pm.
A full day of activities is scheduled for Saturday, starting with a golf tournament at the Leonardville Golf Course. At 11am it’s a Drive or Ride, as well as a silent auction at the Sikes Venue. There will be food vendors and the beer garden, all leading up to the Live auction at 6pm.
Proceeds from the event will go to help out Haisley Dow, Harold Oliver, and Riley & Kenzi Beard.
Stay tuned to the Nelson Family Community Foundation Facebook page for updates and more information.
At age 86, Buddy Guy is a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee, a major influence on rock titans like Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, and Stevie Ray Vaughan, a pioneer of Chicago’s fabled West Side sound, and a living link to the city’s halcyon days of electric blues. Buddy Guy has received 8 GRAMMY Awards, a 2015 Lifetime Achievement GRAMMY Award, 38 Blues Music Awards (the most any artist has received), the Billboard Magazine Century Award for distinguished artistic achievement, a Kennedy Center Honor, and the Presidential National Medal of Arts. Rolling Stone Magazine ranked him #23 in its “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.”
In 2019, Buddy Guy won his 8th and most recent GRAMMY Award for his 18th solo LP, “The Blues Is Alive And Well”.
In July of 2021, in honor of Buddy Guy’s 85th birthday, PBS American Masters released “Buddy Guy: The Blues Chase The Blues Away”, a new documentary following his rise from a childhood spent picking cotton in Louisiana to becoming one of the most influential guitar players of all time. The documentary features new interviews with Buddy Guy, Carlos Santana, Eric Clapton, John Mayer, Gary Clark Jr, and more. Watch the full documentary at PBS Online here.
Though Buddy Guy will forever be associated with Chicago, his story actually begins in Louisiana. One of five children, he was born in 1936 to a sharecropper’s family and raised on a plantation near the small town of Lettsworth, located some 140 miles northwest of New Orleans. Buddy was just seven years old when he fashioned his first makeshift “guitar”—a two-string contraption attached to a piece of wood and secured with his mother’s hairpins.
In 1957, he took his guitar to Chicago, where he would permanently alter the direction of the instrument, first on numerous sessions for Chess Records playing alongside Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, and the rest of the label’s legendary roster, and then on recordings of his own. His incendiary style left its mark on guitarists from Jimmy Page to John Mayer. “He was for me what Elvis was probably like for other people,” said Eric Clapton at Guy’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction in 2005. “My course was set, and he was my pilot.”
Seven years later, July 2012 proved to be one of Buddy Guy’s most remarkable years ever. He was
awarded the 2012 Kennedy Center Honor for his lifetime contribution to American culture; earlier in the year, at a performance at the White House, he even persuaded President Obama to join him on a chorus of “Sweet Home Chicago.” Also in 2012, he published his long-awaited memoir, When I Left Home.
These many years later, Buddy Guy remains a genuine American treasure and one of the final surviving connections to an historic era in the country’s musical evolution.
