Described by one critic as "Bessie Smith meets Diana Krall meets Janis Joplin," 2009's Blues Music Award winner of both "Acoustic Artist of the Year" and "Acoustic Album of the Year" is a masterful blues & boogie pianist and vocal stylist who combines elements of blues, jazz, soul, gospel and pop.
The magnificently indefinable Asylum Street Spankers stand as one of America's most distinctive groups. Defiantly acoustic, fiercely independent and absurdly good, one reviewer aptly described them as "a roots-rock riddle, nestled in a satirical Vaudeville enigma, packaged in an old-timey radio-show puzzle and slathered with hippie-fried mystery sauce."
Blues, Folk, Rags, Swing, Fingerpicking, Lap-Steel, springwater-clear vocals...
"Funky blend of blues, soul, and rock" from ex- Fishbone and Miles Davis sideman, merging rootsy, bluesy fundamentals with modern soul, funk, and hip-hop influences.
Sassy and soulful electric and acoustic blues have earned this Australian guitarslinger nominations for Blues Music Awards for four years running.
"A very new and very exciting vision of the blues — a fusion of the Delta and their own haunted visions. In a way, when performing live they're like a classic jam band that can take a song and its theme for great lengths... but whatever they are, they're extremely innovative with a sound completely their own. Exhilarating and mind-enchanting." —Cascade Blues Association
Genre-defying, Handy-nominated explorer of Americana, Blues, and any other roots music style that strikes his fancy. A distinctly contemporary songwriting voice filtering the emotion of Hank Williams Sr. through the attitude of Tom Waits.
"There's no one else playing exactly the same sort of music as William Lee Ellis," said legendary producer Jim Dickinson of the Americana/blues master acoustic guitarist. "It's as if he's invented his own sort of 'holy blues' genre."
Incendiary soul/jazz/funk — a hard-hitting and authentic modern take on Memphis' original soul-stew sound. Featuring Stax musicians Skip Pitts, Willie Hall, and Ronnie Williams.
"Acoustic Blues with a contemporary edge" from twenty-time winner (actually, we've lost count a while back) of the Cascade Blues Association's Muddy Award.
Harkening back to the days when the distinction between blues and country was hopelessly blurred, rising Americana / blues guitarist Chris Cotton places his own stamp on roots styles ranging from the Piedmont to North Mississippi.
Guitar genius Calvin Newborn played on B.B. King's first recordings, taught Elvis how to dance, and tore up the Big Apple in the heyday of bop...
Timeless music from the legendary patriarch of Cincinnati blues and boogie piano...
Modern-day practitioners of barrelhouse, honky-tonk, Delta-bred sacramental hoo-doo music that is profane as it is glorious...