$10 Cover @ the Door (Includes Free CD!) / Start 7:30pm / Doors 7pm
Featuring Special Guests…Russ Keyes (bass) and Mike Avery (drums)
Peter "Hi-Fi" Ward grew up in Lewiston, Maine, and later moved to Boston, where he worked in various bands and sat in with Sugar Ray & the Bluetones, who then featured Ronnie Earl on guitar and Peter’s brother Mudcat on bass. He backed artists such as Jimmy Rogers, Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson, Sunnyland Slim and Lowell Fulson when they appeared locally. In New York, Peter was honored when Otis Rush, after performing together, told him he played chords “like an old man.” In the 1980s, Peter toured with the Legendary Blues Band whose members — Joe Willie “Pinetop” Perkins, Willie “Big Eyes” Smith, Calvin “Fuzz” Jones and Jerry Portnoy — had backed the great Muddy Waters. The experience reinforced in Peter the desire to play blues in a conversational, unhurried and to-the-point way. With Peter the band recorded Red Hot and Blues on Rounder Records, also featuring guitarist Duke Robillard.
Peter was married for 20 years to beloved Boston WGBH-FM blues deejay Mai Cramer, who died of breast cancer in 2002. Each year Peter and Mai's fans stage a fundraiser in her honor for charity at the Regent Theatre in Arlington, Mass. Headliners have included Ronnie Earl, Duke Robillard, Jody Williams, Luther “Guitar Junior” Johnson, Lurrie Bell, Jody Williams, Ron Levy and Eddie Taylor, Jr. In 2010, he produced Goodbye Liza Jane: Hello Western Swing, a CD of western swing songs featuring Herb Remington, an original member of Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys.