Henry Butler Performs New Year's Eve Radio Concert; Berklee and WGBH Kick Off NPR's Toast of the Nation

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	Henry Butler

The Boston portion of the broadcast will be performed and heard from 8-9:00 pm Eastern Time, December 31. Toast of the Nation will be heard nationally on more than 125 NPR stations, and Sirius Satellite Radio, as well as overseas on NPR Worldwide, the American Forces Radio network, and the Internet.  This year's broadcast begins in Boston at 8:00 PM Eastern Time, and moves on to Washington DC's Kennedy Center, Tipitina's in New Orleans – broadcast central this year -- and on through a series of great live venues across the country, throughout the night.   In the Boston area, the program will be heard on WGBH/89.7 FM. 

Henry Butler is the latest in a long line of New Orleans piano "professors" stretching back to the renowned Jelly Roll Morton.  He had an opportunity to be a different kind of professor in Boston this fall, when he taught at the Berklee as part of the college's New Orleans Visiting Artists (NOVA) program.  NOVA was created to bring musicians displaced by Hurricane Katrina to play and teach in Boston.  Butler lost his home in Katrina, and is temporarily living in Boulder, Colorado.  Butler's fellow NOVA artists have included Marva Wright, Donald Harrison, Jazz Hip Hop Orchestra founder Angelamia Bachemin, and George Porter Jr. of the Meters. 

Butler's CD "Homeland", which was released in 2004, rocketed up the Billboard Blues Charts, clocking in at #10 "with a bullet" at one point.  Butler also recently performed with rock legends Keith Richards, Bonnie Raitt, Art Neville, Allan Toussaint and Lloyd Price for the Columbia Tristar Pictures concert film "Make It Funky" at the historic Saenger Theater in New Orleans, which was released nationally this year. His recordings may be heard on Butler's website, www.henrybutler.com. 

"I always remember liking music," Butler says, "feeling a strong sense of identity with anything musical. When I was little, there always were bands practicing in someone's house or playing in a bar. You'd just hear 'em from the street. And I could always tell the good players from the others. That's something I just don't know how to explain." 

Butler has inspired and performed alongside a who's who of modern popular music royalty, including Bonnie Raitt, Keith Richards, Johnny Lang, Harry Connick, Jr., Professor Longhair, Dr. John, Branford Marsalis, BB King, the Neville Brothers and John Mayer.  He has released seven solo albums and has appeared on various jazz, blues, rock and R&B recordings. 

Drawn instinctively to musical experience as a youngster and blind since birth, Butler began performing professionally at the age of 14. Raised in New Orleans' Calliope housing project and educated at the Louisiana School for the Blind, Southern University, and Michigan State University, Butler's deep involvement with the legacy of African-American music, admirable facility, and signature style establish him securely as the latest in a long line of New Orleans piano "professors" stretching back at least to Jelly Roll Morton. 

More than anything, it is the ability and willingness to traverse genres knowledgeably and creatively, based on a solid theoretical grounding, that sets Butler apart and fuels his flights of solo improvisation, where the careful listener might hear Willie "The Lion" Smith and Antonin Dvorak, say, discussing the influence of the blues in the compositions of Thelonious Monk. 

Butler is also an accomplished historian, teacher and still photographer.  Whether he is shooting ethereal landscape shots, portraits of friends, images from his teachings of blind and visually impaired children or his experimentation with double exposures, Butler uses his intuition and his tremendous intellect to approach his subjects. 

The performance will be in an intimate club setting at Berklee, and is a fundraiser for WGBH-FM. It is sold out, and unfortunately no more seats are available.

For editorial information or digital photos, the media may contact:

Rob Hayes
Office of Public Information
(617) 747-2566
rhayes@berklee.edu