Robert Finley didn't start his recording career until he was 62, but he's making up for lost time fast.
At 71, the Louisiana blues powerhouse is finally bringing his soul-drenched testimony to Australia and Melbourne for the first time this May. Robert Finley has spent the past decade becoming one of the most compelling voices in American music, releasing four acclaimed albums and turning stages across Europe and the US into something closer to a revival meeting than a rock show. Now Australian audiences get their turn.
Raised in Bernice, Louisiana, Finley started singing after being baptised at seven years old. Church choirs led to decades playing for tips, touring the world and honing a voice that can either hush a room or burn it down entirely. Since cutting his debut Age Don’t Mean A Thing in 2016, he’s released Goin’ Platinum in 2017, the autobiographical Sharecropper’s Son in 2021, and Black Bayou in 2023. He even reached the semi-finals of America’s Got Talent with a gospel performance that had the audience in tears.
Robert Finley in Melbourne
- 17 May – Oxford Art Factory, Sydney (with Daddy Long Legs)
- 20 May – Thornbury Theatre, Melbourne
- 21 May – Memo Music Hall, Melbourne
- 22 May – Meeniyan Town Hall, Meeniyan
- 23 May – Theatre Royal, Castlemaine
- Also appearing at Blues On Broadbeach, Gold Coast
- Tickets: here
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His latest record Hallelujah! Don’t Let The Devil Fool Ya was made for Easy Eye Sound with Dan Auerbach from The Black Keys, who’s been helping Finley channel a lifetime of stories and grooves into albums that sound both timeless and completely singular. Recorded in a single day in Nashville with an all-star studio band, the album was built the Finley way: improvised, spirit-led and entirely in the moment. His daughter and longtime touring partner Christy Johnson adds spectral, soulful vocals that bring a call-and-response depth straight from the gospel records that shaped them both.
Far from a traditional gospel album, Hallelujah! Don’t Let The Devil Fool Ya blends Mississippi blues grit with soaring soul, raw r&b and spiritual exultation. It pulls from the same well that gave us Sam Cooke, Sun Ra and the back-roads choirs of the American South. It’s the sound of an artist finally getting to testify the way he’s always wanted to.
Finley’s live shows mix preacher energy with bluesman grit, bandleader precision and pure storytelling power. Reviews from his US and European runs describe them as electric, joyful and transcendent in equal measure. After a lifetime of hard work and a decade of late-blooming success, Robert Finley has become nothing less than a spokesman for the blues; and Melbourne audiences are about to find out why.
For more information, head here.
