IF YOU GOWhat: Riverfront Nights featuring Joe Robinson.When: 7 p.m. Saturday.Where: Ross's LandingAdmission: Free.Phone: 756-2211.
Joe Robinson has been turning heads since he was a kid. At 13, he won the Australian National Songwriting Competition. In 2008, the New South Wales native won "Australia's Got Talent." On Saturday, he will headline the final Riverfront Nights concert series at Ross's Landing.
Robinson is known in guitar circles for his ability to shred, but his songs also showcase a maturity as he blends rock, blues, jazz, country and R&B.
His latest CD, "Let Me Introduce You," saw him move into writing song lyrics as well as instrumentals, as he'd focused on in the past.
"(It) was a dive into the deep end for me," he said in his online biography. "It would have been easy to make another instrumental album, but I crave being inspired. When I am, music and ideas just seem to pour out nonstop. So I decided to challenge myself by writing mostly vocal tunes for the album, which I'd never done before.
"That meant I had to transform myself into a songwriter in the classic sense and learn how to make my guitar and my vocal performances complement each other. The 18 months it took to write and record the album were like riding a runaway train, but as it turns out that's exactly what I needed to do to find my own style as an artist."