Legendary bluesman coming to Tucson's La Rosa

While the songs are new to his fans, at least one on that record, "Storm Warning," has been collecting dust for decades in the legendary harmonica player's filing cabinet.

"I still have piles of tunes that I've written over the years that are just filed away," he said during a phone call last month from his winter home in Merida, Mexico. "I've got a lot of material that I don't know if I'll ever get around to recording all of it."

The slow-burning bluesy song, which he guessed he might have written about 30 years ago, was the first single off the album. It will no doubt be on his setlist when Musselwhite and his band take the stage at La Rosa on Saturday, June 13. The show is presented by Rhythm & Roots, Tucson's long-running Americana-blues concert presenter that is in its 30th and final season.

You would think that after 40 records in a career that's spanned six decades, Musselwhite would have said as much as he'd wanted with his music.

You would be wrong.

"There's other things I'd like to try. Jazz and gospel and hillbilly," he said. "I know a lot of music I like and I would like to see how I can apply myself to it and come up with a new sound or something that's endlessly interesting. It's like an endless adventure."

That adventure included collaborating with the rising young blues trio GA-20 on its upcoming studio album "Blues Now," dropping July 31. Musselwhite's former guitar player Matthew Stubbs formed the traditional blues group during a break in touring in 2018.

"We just decided that it'd be fun to record together, and you know, they're younger guys and they love blues and they just bring a new energy to it and enthusiasm with their youth," said the 84-year-old Musselwhite. "It's a lot of fun playing with them, recording with them. It was so easy. Everybody just really gets along. It's a real nice camaraderie with everybody and we all love the music."

Musselwhite's show on Saturday, his first here since he played downtown's Fox Tucson Theatre in fall 2022, will dip into his deep catalog that goes back to his 1966 critically acclaimed debut album "Stand Back!" He was 22 and was already becoming part of the conversation of great American bluesmen of his generation.

The Mississippi-born/Memphis-raised Musselwhite moved to Chicago when he was 18 and took work in a factory. At night, he immersed himself in the Chicago blues scene, sitting in on jam sessions with some of the city's elite players including Little Walter, Howlin' Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson II, Junior Wells, Buddy Guy and Elvin Bishop.

Some of Musselwhite's African-American factory co-workers would mock him for playing "the old folks' music."

" 'You got to get up with the times'," he recalled them telling him. "They just thought I was crazy. ... They could not believe somebody their age liked their parents' music."

But there was a sincerity about Musselwhite's blues that even his coworkers could not ignore.

"Honesty. I just love the blues and try to really play from my heart," he said. "A lot of people play from their hands. I had a lot of influences. ... I just played what I liked, you know, and wasn't thinking about how to be radio friendly or none of that stuff. I just wanted to play what feels right to me, because I figured out you can't please everybody; you might as well just please yourself."

Fast-forward a lifetime, Musselwhite is still playing music that speaks to him.

"I didn't even have a plan or a goal to do this. I wrote a tune called 'The Blues Ovetook Me' and this seems like what happened. The music took me where it wanted to go," he said. "I was just following the music. I loved the music. ... I didn't even know where it was going at the time. I'm still going in that direction."

His show at La Rosa, 800 N. Country Club Road, begins at 7:30 p.m. Saturday with the Tucson blues band The Xcelerators opening. Reserved seats are $63.89; general admission is $51.95 through larosatucson.org.