Blues

Anna Scionti (pronounced Shon-tee) is a singer-songwriter, guitarist and bottleneck slide player who mixes it up on cigar box guitar, resonator, lap steel and six-string guitar.

The music Scionti makes is her own style steeped in blues, roots and rock. While absorbing influences from her favourite inspirational artists, Scionti walks her own creative path. Driving guitars and honey-soaked, gravel-infused vocals draw you deep in to her world of emotionally charged, electrified rhythmic tunes.

Having lost both her parents as a teenager, Scionti turned to music as an outlet. Her original songs tell stories of love, loss, and longing and are uninhibited, raw and unapologetic in their honesty. They are songs from the heart.

JUNKBOX RACKET is Scionti’s latest album giving you a reason to get up and dance!

When left alone with a bunch of guitars out comes a collection of songs that are rebellious and raw. Recorded in 2020 JUNKBOX RACKET includes ten songs played on six uniquely crafted hand-made cigar box guitars and Anna’s 1960’s Gibson melody maker!

Scionti’s other releases include: 2019 album ‘Orphan Diary’ and her 2017 self-titled EP. ‘Orphan Diary’ debuted at No.4 on the Australian Blues & Roots Airplay Charts, spent seven months in the top 20, and was a nominee for ‘Best Blues Album’ at the 2019 Music Victoria Awards.

Having shared the stage with some of Australia’s finest blues players, Scionti is a regular on the Blues Train and at festivals including Thredbo Blues Festival (NSW), Australian Blues Music Festival (NSW), National Folk Festival (ACT), Great Southern Cigar Box Guitar Festival (VIC), Gympie Music Muster (QLD), Echuca Winter Blues Festival (VIC), Bendigo Blues & Roots Music Festival (VIC), Marysville Jazz & Blues Festival (VIC), and Wangaratta Festival of Jazz & Blues (VIC)

From the liner notes of their debut album, "Twisted", released on Alligator Records: For thirty years, Rick Estrin was the voice and face of one of the country’s best-loved blues and jump bands, Little Charlie & The Nightcats. His huge harp sound, streetwise vocals, razor-sharp lyrics and hipster persona were as much the focus of the band as Little Charlie Baty’s hard-swinging and unpredictable guitar. In fact, Rick was so much the central figure of the band, most newcomers assumed that he was “Charlie.”

Kenny Wayne Shepherd and his group exploded on the scene in the mid-'90s and garnered huge amounts of radio airplay on commercial radio, which historically has not been a solid home for blues and blues-rock music, with the exception of Stevie Ray Vaughan in the mid-'80s. Shepherd was born June 12, 1977, in Shreveport, LA. The Shreveport native began playing at age seven, figuring out Muddy Waters licks from his father's record collection (he has never taken a formal lesson).

Cecil James ("Big Jay") McNeely (born on April 29, 1927, in Los Angeles, California) is an American rhythm and blues tenor saxophonist. He grew up in the community of Watts, California, where he occasionally observed Simon Rodia constructing the Watts Towers. McNeely is known for his intense playing and his energetic and acrobatic stage performances. For example, at a 1949 concert in the old Wrigley Field baseball stadium in Los Angeles, he played while walking through the stands and then while crawling from home plate to first base on his back.