Joe Beard

Featured Leader: Joe Beard

Joe Beard is Rochester’s legendary blues guitarist and vocalist. He has many times toured the United States as well as Europe and has sat in with Muddy Waters, B.B. King, and his idol John Lee Hooker. Beard performed at the inauguration gala of President George H.W. Bush.

He grew up in Ashland, Mississippi, surrounded by aspiring and veteran blues musicians, singing at an early age and taking to the guitar when he was 17. After settling in Rochester in the mid-1950s he formed the Soul Brothers Six and also befriended famed classic blues guitarist Son House, who was his neighbor in Rochester (and now a fellow inductees in the Rochester Music Hall of Fame). Beard and Son House began playing together, including a concert for students at the University of Rochester in 1968. Beard’s music is rooted in the delta and early urban blues of Memphis, Detroit, and Chicago. Critics and fans say his songs have a storytelling quality about them. Beard has recorded several acclaimed blue albums, including the critically acclaimed “Blues Union” with musician Ronnie Earl in 1996, which won Offbeat Magazine‘s Blues Album of the Year award. – Rochester Music Hall of Fame

Photographer: Rody Fabre

Rudy Fabre is a distinguished freelance photographer based in Rochester, NY, specializing in portrait photography. His work has been featured in CITY magazine and exhibited at the Rochester Contemporary Art Center. Rudy’s talent has also led him to capture the vibrant atmosphere of The Lucky Flea. Through his lens, Rudy not only showcases his creative prowess but also forges meaningful connections with his subjects, providing a deeper, more intimate portrayal of their stories.

Essayist: Monique Franz

Monique Franz is the senior editor of Kinsman Avenue Publishing, Inc., based out of Rochester, New York. She founded Kinsman Quarterly, a literary journal for BIPOC and underrepresented authors which reaches thousands over 70 nations. Franz earned her MFA in Creative Writing from Wilkes University, where she won the Beverly Hiscox and Norris Church Mailer scholarship awards.

Franz, a creative writer for page and stage, built the CAIPE Kids Playhouse in Murrieta, California in 2004. She later moved to Hong Kong, where she served as the Head Performing Arts Mentor at the International Academy of Film and Television. Her book publications include The Dove Training Series and Legacy of a Father; and as editor of Black Diaspora: Tales and Poems from the Sons and Daughters of Africa and the upcoming Native Voices: A Literary Collection of Emerging Indigenous Writers. kinsmanquarterly.org