By SAM WATSON
Marketing Contact, Ignition Music Garage

GOSHEN — The 2016 Ignition Concert Series at Ignition Music Garage, voted Top Ten Favorite Venue by the Americana Music Association, continues with Webb Wilder on Jan. 10.

Before there were Kings of Leon, Keys of Black or Whites of Jack in Nashville, there was Webb Wilder. 

Rock ’n’ roll, from Nashville. Formed from Mississippi mud, tinged with British mod. Bruised by the blues. Baptized by Buck and Chuck. Psychiatric psycho-rootsy. Sizzling, glistening, uneasy listening. As it has been for three decades, it is now and ever shall be. Webb Wilder.

Mississippi Moderne. Pronounce it however you like, but Webb pronounces it “Moe-durn.” Hybridized and improvised.

“I hate to use the word ‘mature,’” Webb says. And so we shall not.

Born more than 60 years ago in Hattiesburg, Webb Wilder is not mature. He is the last of the full-grown men, and the last of the boarding house people. He is a unique presence among the peasants. He is a force for good, and a friend to animals.

And he has just made an album of uncommon uncommonness, of unusual unusualness.

Mississippi Moderne. Again, pronounce it however you like. The main thing is to listen, and in your listening you shall hear a marvelous encapsulation of things right and righteous, wistful yet wild, strange at times but always strong. Garage rock and bluster blues. Fuzz-tone and fury, and, in many ways, a full and unbroken circle back to the days when Webb Wilder was a boy possessed of the mind of a full-grown man, listening to The Kinks and The Move, an Anglophile in Mississippi.

“It’s a journey, and one thing I’ve learned about myself is that I haven’t grown up,” Webb says. “The good news is, I’m a musician. The bad news is, I’m a musician.”

Ignition Music Garage presents Webb Wilder at 7 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 10, as part of the ongoing Ignition Concert Series. Doors open at 7 p.m. and the concert begins at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $20.

Tickets may be purchased at Ignition Music Garage, by phone at (574) 971-8282, or online at http://ignitionmusic.net/