Bluesman Popa Chubby to play on familiar ground

Chester — Current Monroe resident Popa Chubby will perform for the first time ever for the Sugarloaf Music Series at 8 p.m. on Saturday, April 14, in The Pavilion of the Lycian Performing Arts Center, Kings Highway, Sugar Loaf. When it comes to the blues, names like Stevie Ray Vaughn, B.B. King, Billie Holiday, Buddy Guy and Bessie Smith are familiar to many. And then there is a guy from the Bronx, a place for nurturing Latin jazz. But the blues? The guy is named Ted Horowitz, to boot. But most blues aficionados don’t know him by his given name: in the vernacular, he is known as Popa Chubby. This will not be the first time Sugarloaf Music will have produced a blues concert. In the past, Chester’s own Bill Perry and the late ‘Iceman’ Albert Collins have performed for locally enthusiastic crowds. Brought up in the same neighborhood popularized by Robert DiNiro’s film, “A Bronx Tale,” the aspiring bluesman was exposed early to music through his parent’s candy store juke box. By the age of 16, having picked up the guitar, he was on his way to becoming a professional performer. In 1990, the Popa Chubby Band was born. Before long, he was a featured artist in many New York City venues. By 1994, he was touring and recording for the Sony Corporation’s O-Keh label. In 2000, Popa Chubby signed with Blind Pig, for whom he released a string of blues recordings, featuring his gritty, urban style, punctuated by his trademark high-speed guitar work and his witty songwriting. “The core of my music is excitement,” he observes. “I think my music should make people feel alive.” For more information on Popa Chubby’s appearance at the Lycian and other Sugarloaf Music Series events, visit www.sugarloafmusic.org.