“Homemade rock ‘n’ roll with a dose of rattlesnake venom and gospel-drenched howling.” - All Things Considered

Rooted in ‘60s rock ‘n’ roll and hillbilly music, Michael Tarbox’s songs have a backwoods sound and a lived-in, hard-won perspective. Tarbox pulls them together with guitar playing that’s tough as Texas barbed-wire.

Tarbox started out playing bass in garage bands, but came into his own when he took a deep dive into the country blues he’d heard around his parents’ house as a kid. “The more I listened to those old songs the more beautiful they seemed,” says Tarbox. "You couldn’t reach the bottom of music like that.” He began writing, got serious about the guitar and, after a year of obsessive practice, formed The Tarbox Ramblers. The group released well-received albums on the Rounder label, and worked with heroes like Jim Dickinson, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss.

Today, Tarbox focuses on playing solo shows. Solo, and with the band, he’s played theaters, clubs and festivals throughout The US, Europe and Canada, including a 2024 solo show at The Kennedy Center For The Arts, in Washington DC.

Michael Tarbox’s solo releases include My Primitive Joy, Works and Days and an acoustic live recording, Kingdom Come Blues. Paler Suns features songs by early influences like Jimi Hendrix, The Grateful Dead, and The Mississippi Sheiks.

A FAN’S NOTE

“Tarbox’s songs are simple and direct. “Sparecity” isn’t a word but, if it were, it would describe Tarbox’s spare sound perfectly. Imagine trying to build a bridge to eternity out of found objects and pure humanity. That’s the spirit of this music: aspiring and idiosyncratic, with room to spare for heartbreak. Tarbox plays a mean guitar, and he knows how to conjure.”

HOW IT ALL STARTED

Growing up in a mill town, I heard The Ronettes when I was six and immediately loved them. Years later I heard The MC5, and was on my way.

I joined a band, playing bass. When our guitarist moved to New Orleans I knew I had to learn guitar well enough to carry a group. I locked myself in my room for three months, playing from the moment I woke up till the moment I fell back to bed. It was the right move; it led to a good luck streak I didn’t know I needed. Chance and serendipity seemed to be on my side.

I was listening to a lot of country blues and began to feel like I was being pulled into another world. It was fantastic. I had a shabby apartment overlooking a street corner in Cambridge, and it felt like heaven. The shabbiness felt perfect, and the view from the window on a stormy winter’s day filled me with joy.

A club, a dive worthy of New Orleans, was on the next street over, two minutes from my front door. The owner asked us to play every Friday night. I couldn’t have asked for anything better. The scene was packed with colorful regulars and eccentrics, yakkers and gabbers and the best jukebox in Boston. It was exhilarating, it felt like everything was speeding up. Things felt haphazard but somehow more meaningful. Light became more sensuous. It was very alive, and it set me on the path.