Vintage Trouble, based in Los Angeles, is the brainchild of Ty Taylor (vocal) and Nalle Colt (guitar). Combining their love for original soul and rhythm & blues, the two set up a basic home studio in Venice Beach and started crafting the beginnings of Vintage Trouble. Already a friend of both, Rick Barrio Dill (bass) came along and added his shared bass influences and energy into the newly formed project.
Steve Hill got an early start as a professional guitar player at the age of 16. By the time he was 20 he was already doing more than 200 gigs a year, which lead to the success of his first album in 1997. The album was voted Best Canadian Debut Recording by Vancouver’s Real Blues magazine. Following a tour that took him across Canada, France and Belgium, he returned to the studio in 1999 to record ‘’Call It What You Will’’.
Any list of awesome Aussies should include Anni Piper. An outstanding bassist in her own right, she's an authentic roots blues rocker that possesses a voice to die for. It has even been touted that an appropriate compliment would be that she sounds 100% American! Anni remembers with clarity the first time she heard the blues back in her school days. “It was Paul Butterfield Blues Band playing ‘Born in Chicago’ - I knew straight away that this was the direction I was heading.” she says.
Born and raised in Galveston, Texas, Hamilton was first hooked on music through his parents’ extensive collection of blues, rock, and soul records. Hamilton honed his multi-instrumental chops early, learning drums, piano, guitar, bass and harmonica by his early teens, and performing as part of his family’s doo-wop group.
ZZ Top is an American blues rock band formed in 1969 in Houston, Texas. The band members are Billy Gibbons (vocals and guitar), Dusty Hill (bass guitar and vocals), and Frank Beard (drums). They hold the distinction of being one of the few rock bands still comprising its original members for nearly 40 years, and until 2006, with the same manager/producer, Bill Ham. They reached the peak of their commercial success in the 1970s and 1980s, scoring many hit songs during that era; but they remain together today and are still touring and releasing albums.
super FLORENCE jam are an underground sensation. The band have played to packed and passionate audiences at many of Australia's most popular venues including the Metro Theatre, Gaelic Theatre, The Hi Fi, Roundhouse and Royal Easter Show. Having supported artists as diverse as British India, Shihad, Dallas Crane, Bertie Blackman and Airbourne, the band have finally recorded their much-anticipated debut EP, set for release on December 11th.
Musselwhite was born in the rural hill country of Mississippi. He has said that he is of Choctaw descent, and he was born in a region originally inhabited by the Choctaw. However, in a 2005 interview[citation needed], he said his mother had told him he was actually Cherokee.
His family considered it normal to play music, with his father playing guitar and harmonica, his mother playing piano, and a relative who was a one-man band. At the age of three, Musselwhite moved to Memphis, Tennessee. When he was a teenager, Memphis experienced the period when rockabilly, western swing, electric blues, and some forms of African American music were combining to give birth to rock and roll. The period featured legendary figures such as Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Johnny Cash, as well as minor legends such as Gus Cannon, Furry Lewis, Will Shade, Royal Bell, Memphis Willie B., Johnny Burnette, Red Roby, Abe McNeal, and Slim Rhodes. Musselwhite supported himself by digging ditches, laying concrete and running moonshine in a 1950 Lincoln. This environment was Musselwhite's school for music as well as life, and he acquired the nickname "Memphis Charlie."[citation needed]
In true bluesman fashion, Musselwhite then took off in search of the rumored "big-paying factory jobs" up the "Hillbilly Highway", legendary Highway 61 to Chicago, where he continued his education on the South Side, making the acquaintance of even more legends including Muddy Waters, Junior Wells, Sonny Boy Williamson, Buddy Guy, Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter, and Big Walter Horton. Musselwhite immersed himself completely in the musical life, living in the basement of, and occasionally working at Jazz Record Mart (the record store operated by Delmark Records founder Bob Koester) with Big Joe Williams and working as a driver for an exterminator, which allowed him to observe what was happening around the city's clubs and bars. He spent his time hanging out at the Jazz Record Mart at the corner of State and Grand and the nearby bar, Mr. Joe's, with the city's blues musicians, and sitting in with Big Joe Williams and others in the clubs, playing for tips. There he forged a lifelong friendship with John Lee Hooker; though Hooker lived in Detroit, Michigan, the two often visiting each other, and Hooker serving as best man at Musselwhite's wedding. Gradually Musselwhite became well known around town.
In time, Musselwhite led his own blues band, and, after Elektra Records' success with Paul Butterfield, he released the classic[citation needed] Stand Back! album in 1966 on Vanguard Records (as "Charley Musselwhite"), to immediate and great success. He took advantage of the clout this album gave him to move to San Francisco, where, instead of being one of many competing blues acts, he held court as the king of the blues in the exploding countercultural music scene, an exotic and gritty figure to the flower children. Musselwhite even convinced Hooker to move out to California.
Since then, Musselwhite has released over 20 albums, as well as guesting on albums by many other musicians, such as Bonnie Raitt's Longing in Their Hearts and The Blind Boys of Alabama's Spirit of the Century, both winners of Grammy awards. He also appeared on Tom Waits' Mule Variations and INXS' Suicide Blonde. He himself has won 14 W. C. Handy awards and six Grammy nominations, as well as Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Monterey Blues Festival and the San Javier Jazz Festival in San Javier, Spain, and the Mississippi Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts.
In 1979, Musselwhite recorded The Harmonica According to Charlie Musselwhite in London for Kicking Mule Records, intended to go with an instructional book; the album itself became so popular that it has been released on CD.
Unfortunately, Musselwhite, as with many of his peers, fell victim to alcoholism; by his own admission[citation needed], he had never been on stage sober until after he stopped drinking entirely in 1987.
In 1990 Musselwhite signed with Alligator Records, a step led to a resurgence of his career.
Over the years, Musselwhite has branched out in style. His 1999 recording, Continental Drifter, is accompanied by Quarteto Patria, from Cuba's Santiago region, the Cuban music analog of the Mississippi Delta. Because of the political differences between Cuba and the United States, the album was recorded in Bergen, Norway, with Musselwhite's wife ironing out all the details.
Musselwhite believes the key to his musical success was finding a style where he could express himself. He has said, "I only know one tune, and I play it faster or slower, or I change the key, but it’s just the one tune I’ve ever played in my life. It’s all I know."[1]
His past two albums, Sanctuary and Delta Hardware have both been released on Real World Records. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.
Joe Louis Walker (born December 25, 1949 in San Francisco, California) is an American blues guitarist, singer and producer. Walker's parents were blues fans, and introduced him to the music when he was young.
He learned to play the guitar at age fourteen, and left home at sixteen to work as a performer. He soon met Mike Bloomfield, who introduced him to the Bay Area Blues scene. During the 1960s, Walker opened for such artists as Earl Hooker, Freddie King and Lowell Fulson.
Booker T. Jones (born November 12, 1944) is a multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, record producer and arranger, best known for fronting the band, Booker T. and the MGs. Born in South Memphis, Tennessee, Jones was a child prodigy, playing the oboe, saxophone, trombone, and piano at school and serving as organist at his church. He attended Booker T. Washington High School, the alma mater of Rufus Thomas and shared the hallowed halls with future stars like Isaac Hayes's writing partner David Porter; saxophonist Andrew Love of The Memphis Horns; soul singer/songwriter William Bell and Earth...