Courtesy photo

Delta Moon offers a mix of slide-soaked, bluesy feasts.

If you like slide guitar playing, get a double shot on Saturday at Blue 5 Restaurant.

Delta Moon, from Atlanta, features Tom Gray and Mark Johnson, friends who hadn't considered playing music together. Then Johnson saw slide giants Ry Cooder and David Lindley at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival a few years back. He and Gray decided to try their own version of slide stew.

By 2003, the band had won the International Blues Challenge in Memphis but was going through a small ration of lead singers. Gray, who wrote the Cyndi Lauper hit "Money Changes Everything," took up the vocal chores before recording the band's most recent CD, "Clear Blue Flame."

That CD, released in summer 2007, contains the band's own version of the Lauper hit, all countrified with a fiddle. Also in the mix is a souped-up tribute to blueswoman Jessie Mae Hemphill, and the smoldering "Blind Spot." All are slide-soaked, bluesy feasts, with Gray and Johnson intertwining with slash and spook.

These tunes are more than simply platforms for Gray and Johnson to burn over. Gray won the 2008 Roots Music Association industry award for best songwriter. Fellow nominees included Alvin Youngblood Heart and Marcia Ball.

Go to this story at roanoke.com/entertainment to hear song samples from "Clear Blue Flame."

Who: Delta Moon

Where: Blue 5 Restaurant, 312 Second St., Roanoke

When: 9 p.m. Saturday

How much: Free

Contact: 904-5338, blue5restaurant.com, deltamoon.com.