New live music chapter for blues club

Ruth Wyand will headline the first Cross Creek Blues Club show night in a new venue at The White Swan in Greytown. PHOTO/SUPPLIED

Award-winning Americana guitarist Ruth Wyand will help launch a new chapter in live music for the Cross Creek Blues Club on Wednesday night.

The club had for years held its monthly performance nights at the Tin Hut, an almost 160-year-old Tauherenikau pub that closed before Christmas.

Cross Creek had found new digs for their first show of the year at the White Swan in Greytown, club spokeswoman Lind Sorensen said.

Ms Sorensen said the Greytown venue was hosting the show night featuring Ruth Wyand, as part of her almost 30-date Backroads, Bottlenecks and Blues Tour of New Zealand.

Wyand has released four albums since 2001 including Distant Drums that year, Greetings From Your Faraway Girl, It's Time For Me To Go, and her latest album Mama's Got the Blues from the show of the same name.

She has toured extensively throughout the United States, Britain, New Zealand, Kuwait and France as a solo guitarist and singer, and has won numerous awards for guitar and songwriting including the Gamble Rogers Fingerstyle Guitar Competition and the Hank Williams Songwriting Award.

She holds a degree in music theory and composition from Stockton College in New Jersey, and is also a renowned music educator.

"Ruth is a phenomenal performer who draws on American roots music to frame her lyrics and demonstrate her strengths as a guitarist, songwriter and vocalist," Ms Sorensen said.

She owns and operates her own music school in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, where she teaches guitar, voice, song-writing and music theory.

Her show at the White Swan starts at 7.15pm on Wednesday, March 2. Entry for club members is $2 and $5 for visitors.