Gary Clark, Jr., Saves the Blues

The blues has an awkward PR problem: it is one of the pillars of African-American culture, but for the last few decades, the people playing it and listening to it have been largely white. Gary Clark, Jr., would like to change that. Clark is 27 and a native of Austin, Texas — he cut his teeth at the legendary club Antone’s, where Stevie Ray Vaughn and his brother Jimmy Vaughn defined modern blues. Clark’s music is classic, not some fancy hybrid. There’s no trick to getting young people back to the blues, he thinks — it’s just a matter of awareness. Produced by Studio 360’s Leital Molad.
  
Video: Gary Clark, Jr., performs “Bright Lights” at SXSW