Ben Prestage, $5

Guitarist/singer/songwriter, one-man-band, runner-up in the 2008 International Blues Challenge and recipient of the Most Unique Performer award at The Songwriters’ Showcase of America.

Born the grandson of a Mississippi sharecropper and great grandson of a vaudeville musician who toured with Al Jolson, Ben Prestage has been soaked in Blues tradition and Mississippi culture since birth. Growing up in the swamps of south central Florida, he began to mix Mississippi Country Blues with his own brand of Florida Swamp Blues. This Muddy-Waters-meets-back-water stew has led him to perform throughout America, at festivals, every kind of bar, and sometimes on downtown sidewalks.

Ben spent some time as a street performer on historic Beale Street in Memphis, where he shared a spot in front of the New Daisy Theatre with modern blues legends Robert Belfour and Richard Johnston. Being a street musician in the Blues ‘capital’ of the South threw Prestage’s music in a new direction. He added a cigarbox guitar, giving him the facility to play bass and guitar strings independently. Then he added a series of foot pedals that can be manipulated by the heels and toes of both feet to