Photos of NYC songwriter Juan Wauters making his Tampa debut at Hooch and Hive

While I knew that Juan Wauters was a folk musician, I didn’t expect his Tampa debut — delivered with just voice, his nylon-string guitar and a condenser microphone — to be as moving as it was at Hooch and Hive on Thursday night. The space normally plays host to louder concerts and club gigs (Tampa’s own Brother Cephus, playing all new songs, brilliantly provided the former last night), but Wauters had me romanticizing about a time when people like Joni Mitchell or Richie Havens invited their small audiences to simply absorb a room and be content with just existing. Watching Bay area songwriter Acho Brother join Wauters on hand drums at the end of the show was icing on the cake, and as Wauters explained on Thursday, “once I leave Tampa tonight, I am already on my way back.”

10/17/2019 | Photos by Michael Johnson