Robert Finley

Blues-jazz concert After a lifetime of hard work, Robert Finley has established himself as one of the leading voices of contemporary blues. Born and raised in the small town of Bernice, Louisiana, Finley spent decades playing on the streets and leading the gospel group Brother Finley and the Gospel Sisters before finally making his recording debut at the decidedly late age of 62 with the album Age Don’t Mean A Thing in 2016. The album caught the attention of Dan Auerbach, founder of the Easy Eye Sound label, giving rise to a long collaboration that includes Goin’ Platinum (2017), Sharecropper’s Son (2021), an autobiographical album, and Black Bayou (2023), which was critically acclaimed. The latter, an 11-track tour de force blending Southern soul, jazz, folk, blues, rock ’n’ roll and more into a raw and resounding tribute to Finley’s home state of Louisiana, was showered with praise by major international media outlets — SPIN, The FADER, No Depression, American Songwriter, Paste, Uncut and many others — with MOJO even declaring in a five-star review: “Black Bayou is surely the album Finley was destined to make, filled with stories only he could tell.”