J.P. Soars Brings The Blues To The March Edition Of Old Town Untapped

Join in at Old Town Untapped on March 3, 2023 for a whirlwind of fun! Award-winning, internationally renowned bluesman J.P. Soars will be bringing the heat to the outdoor stage, while Bailey Contemporary Arts Center (BaCA) featured artist in residence, Gerard Pastor, showcases his life-like pencil art. Old Town Untapped takes place on the first Friday of the month from 6 - 10 pm. The popular free street festival happens in the heart of Old Town and includes food trucks, vendors, live music and art exhibitions. Learn more at www.pompanobeacharts.org.

J.P. Soars is a blues singer, guitarist, songwriter, and record producer, and has been the recipient of continuing critical acclaim, has enjoyed extensive worldwide airplay and his recordings have been in the top rungs of every major blues chart. In 2021, he was nominated for a Blues Music Award in the Contemporary Blues Male Artist category. A 2009 winner of the International Blues Challenge, Soars has released six albums, including his most recent collection, Let Go of the Reins in 2019. A gritty and expressive vocalist, Soars elicits signature tones from hollow-body guitars, and employs a home-made two-string cigar box guitar for his incendiary slide guitar playing. He has toured extensively in Germany, Holland, France, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Austria, and Colombia, as well as throughout the United States and Canada. In the past two years, Soars and his backing band the Red Hots have also played the Peer Blues Festival in Belgium, sharing the stage with Buddy Guy, Joe Bonamassa, Brian Setzer, and Larry Graham, and the Mississippi Delta Blues Festival in Caxias do Sul, Brazil before 10,000 people.

Gerard Pastor utilizes colored pencils to create stunning works of art inspired by the Lucumi religion, which survived the slave trade era. Often mired in secrecy and negative perceptions, the Afro-Caribbean faith serves as a creative force for this artist who looks to inspire understanding. During his residency at BaCA, Pastor will focus his work on the study of how women participate in religion and how religion is used as a patriarchal tool to elevate men, when historically the innate power of survival has been through women.