It is with great sadness that we announce that our good friend, advisor and kindred spirit, Phil Wiggins, has lost his long battle with cancer. His soul left his body on May 7, 2024, just a few hours before his 70th birthday, peacefully with his loving family by his side.
Phil Wiggins was a critically acclaimed master of the blues harmonica, with fantastic virtuosic skill, a passionate champion of traditional African American roots & blues and a major mentor to a new generation of players. He was respected worldwide as an elder statesman of the blues, an internationally renowned blues harmonica player, performer, recording artist, teacher, music director, and preservationist of the mid-Atlantic Piedmont Blues tradition.
Phil was an international star, a famous musician with multiple awards and recognitions, but he was a humble, down to earth, modest man who never showed the egotism that is so widespread and sometimes perilous for the famous. The word ‘legendary’ is freely thrown about by artists and their publicists nowadays, but if ever the term is deserved it is for Phil Wiggins.
Phil was a remarkable musician who could play the little harmonica as if it was the most potent instrument ever invented. One significant aspect of his playing was innovative and fresh. He based his harmonica style on pianists lie Lux Meade and his playing was entirely unpredictable, improvisational and free like a jazz player, never confined to blues patterns. Yet, he had a refined sense of melodicism, and something you can’t learn in school: exquisite taste.
Phil was only the third harmonica player to receive the lifetime honor of an NEA National Heritage Fellowship since the inception of the award. Often referred to by its unofficial designation as “Living Cultural Treasure” award, the fellowship honors and preserves the diverse cultural heritage in the United States. He had also received the Maryland State Arts Council 2021 Heritage Award, recognizing long-term achievement in the traditional arts. Phil Wiggins has taught thousands of burgeoning harmonica players and was a highly desired artistic director in workshops, such as at the Augusta Heritage Center of Davis & Elkins College in West Virginia, the Port Townsend Acoustic Blues Workshop in Washington State and the Hill Country Harmonica Workshop in Mississippi. He played an active role on the board of the National Council for Traditional Arts based in Maryland. Plus, he was co-author of the critically acclaimed book ‘Sweet Bitter Blues– Washington’s Homemade Blues, written with Frank Matheis (University Press of Mississippi 2020). The book chronicles Phil’s life and time, as well as the acoustic blues scene in the DC tri-state area since 1975.
As a teenager living in Washington D.C. in the 1970s, he played at the Smithsonian National Folklife Festival with street singer Flora Molton, sitting in with blues greats Johnny Shines, Sunnyland Slim, Sam Chatmon, Robert Belfour and Howard Armstrong. By the time he graduated from high school in 1973, D.C. blues elders John Jackson, John Cephas and Archie Edwards had embraced him. He joined the Barrelhouse Rockers, a band fronted by pianist and singer Wilbert “Big Chief” Ellis, where John Cephas played guitar. They toured regionally until Ellis retired in 1977, when John Cephas invited him to join in the duo ‘Cephas & Wiggins’.
With John Cephas as guitarist and primary singer, the duo performed together for 32 years as internationally renowned stars of the country blues, and a staple on blues radio, ever present on the concert and festival circuit. Cephas & Wiggins played Carnegie Hall, Royal Prince Albert Hall in London and the Sydney Opera House, as well as small venues worldwide, touring every continent except Antarctica. They recorded more than a dozen critically acclaimed albums, including on Flying Fish and Alligator Records, winning the prestigious W.C. Handy Blues Award in 1984 for Best Traditional Album of the Year and in 1987 as Entertainers of the Year. They even performed at the White House with B.B. King. Phil Wiggins as well as Cephas & Wiggins have been featured in major music magazines, including on the cover of Living Blues, the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune and many more.
Since the 2009 death of John Cephas, Phil has performed with numerous musicians including Nat Reese, Hubby Jenkins, Corey Harris, Australian guitarist Dom Turner, Ben Hunter and Joe Seamons, Sherman Holmes, George Kilby, Jr., the Rev. John Wilkins, Jerron Paxton, and longtime friends Eleanor Ellis and Rick Franklin. In recent years he fronted the acoustic swing/roots/blues ensemble, the Chesapeake Sheiks with Ian Walters, Matt Kelley, Marcus Moore and Steve Wolf. He was actively engaged in reuniting the Piedmont blues with its origins of African American buck and tap dancing, working with dancers Junious Brickhouse and Baakari Wilder.
Our hearts go out to his family and friends worldwide.