"The blues can take you through the entire range of emotions you can go through in one lifetime."Bertrand Laurence

French finger-style acoustic guitarist and songwriter Bertrand Laurence is a master of the art of country blues fingerpicking and slide guitar, but he's no purist. His live shows and CDfeaturing traditional contemporary, and original bluesare full of surprises, including swing tunes, jump blues, ragtime, boogie, bluesy show tunes, rockabillyeven blues sung in French!

Laurence's music blends a wide range of musical influences and a rare diversity of experiences into music that has been called "soulful sounds [that] feel like a humid Southern afternoon with a cool Parisian attitude" (The TAB). Inspired by childhood heroes, Laurence tries to recapture in his music the exuberance of Jelly Roll Morton and the rocking guitar style of Big Bill Broonzy. From his days in a Rolling Stones cover band he adds a more sexual, rock'n'roll vibe to the blues. "The man is so hot!" exclaimed a DJ from a Boston radio station after one of Laurence's shows with his band, The Jellyrollers. "I could listen to him all night!" Having spent a number of years as a performance artist, Laurence knows how to put on a show. (There's even a performance art cut on his recent CD, La Vie en Bleu.) And his time working at a homeless shelter taught him the healing power of the blues (and yielded a song, "Great Big Brains" on the CD). "I like to focus on the upside of the blues," he says. "I'm into joy and celebration."

Audiences have responded with warmth to Laurence's performances. "This is one of those shows you hear about but you're never actually at," commented one listener after a standout performance at Johnny D's in Somerville, MA. And audiences at Le Festival International de la Lousiane in Lafayette, LA gave Laurence a rapturous reception, applauding even in the middle of his songs. After Laurence's set, Festival organizer Jimmy Duhon commented, "Lightning Hopkins would have been proud."

La Vie en Bleu shows Laurence at his best, fingerpicking his way through a diverse collection of intrumentals on six -string, twelve-string and slide guitar, playing solo and with The Jellyrollers (who add washtub bass, harmonica, and percussion to the mix), and singing blues in both English and French. On this CD, Laurence says, all the pieces of his musical life came together, and he calls it, "the culmination of twenty-five years of guitar-playing."

Critics have loved the CD, describing it as "an unexpected gem" (The Providence Phoenix) and "exquisite. . . unjaded, at times very funny and charming, yet skillful and intelligent" (The Noise). On its release it was selected as one of the top five CDs of the month by Metronome, whose reviewer wrote, "[Laurence] is a gifted artist worthy of much recognition."