Selwyn Birchwood

Show: With Jimmy Thackery, Arlen Roth and others on Saturday at the Tinner Hill Blues Festival at Cherry Hill Park in Falls Church. Festival begins at noon; Birchwood plays at 5:15 p.m. 703-241-4109. www.tinnerhill.org/blues-festival. $15-$25 in advance, $20-$30 at the door.

One of the brightest young talents on the blues scene is Florida's Selwyn Birchwood. He was only 29 when he played for the Baltimore Blues Society's annual picnic last August, but he already displayed a surprising command of the music's past and a clear idea of where it might go in the future.

Playing a big, blond Gibson archtop guitar, Birchwood created the kind of ear-grabbing guitar figures that today's blues bands too often lack. When he sang the title track from his debut album, last year's "Don't Call No Ambulance," you could hear the dizzying joy that caused him to fall out and yet refuse a trip to the hospital. When he sang "Walking in the Lion's Den," his baritone growl captured the well-earned paranoia of a young black man.

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As good as Birchwood’s songs were, the sound he got from his band proved just as important. Curtis Nutall was a solid, old-school blues drummer, but bassist Donald Wright’s bass lines were cooked in bubbling funk. And the fourth musician was baritone saxophonist Regi Oliver, whose booming, low-register horn added a rumble to the beat.

The sound grew more distinctive when Birchwood set down his Gibson, sat in a folding chair and lay a lap steel guitar across his thighs. The slippery, sliding notes he coaxed from the instrument sailed high above his voice and the push-and-pull rhythm section with thrilling results on "Hoodoo Stew" and "Tell Me Why."

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