
The cosmic American love child of Howlin Wolf and Link Wray’
Known as a ‘musician’s musician,’ Alvin Youngblood Hart’s praises have been sung by everyone from Bob Dylan to guitar gods Eric Clapton & Mick Taylor.
His debut album, Big Mama’s Door, came out in 1996. In 2003, Hart’s album Down in the Alley was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Blues Album. In 2005, Hart received a Grammy Award for his contribution to Beautiful Dreamer – The Songs of Stephen Foster.
Hart was born in Oakland CA in 1963 to a family of post WWII Mississippi transplants. After a couple false starts, he began to play the guitar, in earnest, in 1977.
‘By that time, it had become an obsessive competition among us teenage boys. The guitar was the video game of our day’, Hart says.
The Hart family was never one to stay put. Spending his formative years on the West Coast, in the Midwest and the Mid-South surely influenced Alvin’s wide ranging musical perspective.
‘It really taught me to appreciate MUSIC for what it was – not because it was this or that genre. I have a great disdain for genre segregation. I try to avoid that practice’.
Along with his 40 years of playing comes a nuts and bolts passion for the hardware of the trade.
‘I’ve been a guitar tinker since day one. I can recall my parents buying me a new guitar, and I would have every screw out of it by bedtime’.
Hart is also an electronics technician, a talent he picked up after 7 years active duty in the U.S. Coast Guard. His knack for quick thinking repairs on the road has earned him nicknames such as, The Garage Guerrilla or The Rock N Roll MacGyver from fellow musicians.
After two decades on the road ,Alvin continues to delight audiences worldwide, whether as a solo performer or with the eternally rockin’ Alvin Youngblood Hart’s Muscle Theory’ The multi award winner always delivers.
‘When I was a 15 year old kid in my room , I would never believe that I would someday play legendary venues like the Hollywood Bowl or Royal Albert Hall. You couldn’t have told me that I’d be in the studio with Taj Mahal, or play onstage with the Allman Bros. Band and
For more information on Alvin Youngblood Hart’s career, check out the following documentaries:
The Soul of a Man (Wim Wenders)
The Blues: A Musical Journey (Martin Scorcese)
Last of the Mississippi Jukes (Robert Mugge)
Rumble – The Link Wray biography
Support James Oliver
James Oliver has already rubbed shoulders with many of the greats of the guitar firmament Albert Lee…Bill Kirchen…Greg Koch to name a few. Now, having recorded three vital, very contemporary albums, he is preparing to write a new chapter of not only his career but also Welsh music history.
His progress since forming Glas in early 2012 has been steady rather than spectacular with nearly 2000 gigs, playing every gig in the Valleys before expanding horizons beyond. See him on stage, though, and spectacular is very much the word. Little wonder the late, great Deke Leonard of Man/Iceberg fame was moved to say that ‘Speaking as a guitarist, James Oliver scares the hell out of me.’
Bill Kirchen says: ‘James Oliver is the real deal, a passionate roots rocker loaded with guitar firepower’.
Book a table for pre-concert dining
Acapela Studio provides pre-concert dining between 6.00pm and 7.30pm from our pizza oven. To view the current menu visit here.
Please purchase your concert tickets first before booking a table. We will not accept any table bookings that do not have a corresponding ticket purchase.
Then return to the event page to book your table, by selecting the date of your event, number of diners and time you require table. The times shown are the only vacancies left. Please complete your email and phone number as this is required to ensure your table is allocated. You will receive confirmation of your booking by email and text.
If on the date you have chosen no tables are available - no times will be shown and the booking system will revert you back to todays date - PLEASE ENSURE YOU BOOK THE CORRECT DATE!
PLEASE NOTE THE VENUE RELIES ON THE INCOME FROM DINING TO ENSURE WE CAN BOOK ALL THE GREAT ACTS PERFORMING.
Income from the provision of pizzas is very important to the venue and if you have booked a table it is a requirement that all people sat at tables order food - a salad alternative is available to pizzas. Please do ensure that all individuals will be ordering on your table - if this is not the case please cancel your table so others who are looking to dine can do so. Our apologies to raise this but recently we have had many tables (some very large) where less than 50% of those sat at tables have ordered food. Financially this is a real problem to the sustainability of the venue.
- All seating at tables must purchase a pizza - so please do not book a table if everyone is not eating.
- Please ensure that you arrive 10 minutes before the time slot allocated to order your pizzas prior to your booking time.
- Tables not seated within 15 minutes of the allocated time may be lost and allocated to other audience members wishing to order pizzas.
- If you wish to book a table for 6 or more please email info@acapela.co.uk
Please note that all of our pizzas are made fresh to order and cooked in an authentic wood-fired oven. It may take up to 45 minutes to be served during busy periods.
IF YOU ARE UNABLE TO BOOK A TABLE YOU CAN STILL ORDER PIZZAS ON THE NIGHT (USUALLY ON BUSY NIGHTS NO LATER THAN 7.15PM) AND WE WILL SERVE THEM TO YOU WHEREVER YOU ARE SAT IN THE VENUE - IN A PIZZA BOX.