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Keith Dunn is an American harmonica player, [1] singer, producer and songwriter. He was born in Boston and has been playing blues music for over 30 years. He is the founder of record label DeeTone Records.
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Keith Dunn is an American harmonica player, [1] singer, producer and songwriter. He was born in Boston and has been playing blues music for over 30 years. He is the founder of record label DeeTone Records.
As a nine-year-old, Dunn saw his first concert when T-Bone Walker played a free outdoor concert. At the age of 12, he bought a harmonica and began playing it at parties and with street players. He grew up listening to radio station W-I-L-D, initially taking a liking to Curtis Mayfield and Smokey Robinson. Later on he started listening to Archie Shepp and John Coltrane. He also bought records by Sonny Boy Williamson I and II). In his early career he played only acoustic harmonica.
After seeing the Junior Wells – Buddy Guy Band he put his first real band together, Blue Lightning. They played material by Junior Wells, Jimmy Rogers, Aleck "Rice" Miller (Sonny Boy Williamson II), and also James Cotton and Muddy Waters. Dunn's second band was called the Honeydrippers which was a guitar/saxophone driven group.
Dunn presently lives in the Netherlands. He has performed with James Cotton, Hubert Sumlin, Roy Eldridge, Big Walter Horton, Lurrie Bell, Jimmy Rogers and Big Mama Thornton. He works as a record producer and gives master classes in harmonica. He regularly tours with The Love Gloves and The International Blues Band and also appears as a guest musician with different artists, for instance Big Jack Johnson.
For the songwriting on his Alone With The Blues CD, Dunn received several awards (for the songs "Strange Things Are Happening" and "Need To Make A Dollar"). He also won the Talking Blues Award for the live performance of the songs on that CD.
Alex or Aleck Miller, known later in his career as Sonny Boy Williamson, was an American blues harmonica player, singer and songwriter. He was an early and influential blues harp stylist who recorded successfully in the 1950s and 1960s. Miller used various names, including Rice Miller and Little Boy Blue, before calling himself Sonny Boy Williamson, which was also the name of a popular Chicago blues singer and harmonica player. To distinguish the two, Miller has been referred to as Sonny Boy Williamson II.
Marion Walter Jacobs, known as Little Walter, was an American blues musician, singer, and songwriter, whose revolutionary approach to the harmonica had a strong impact on succeeding generations, earning him comparisons to such seminal artists as Django Reinhardt, Charlie Parker and Jimi Hendrix. His virtuosity and musical innovations fundamentally altered many listeners' expectations of what was possible on blues harmonica. He was inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008, the first and, to date, only artist to be inducted specifically as a harmonica player.
John Lee Curtis "Sonny Boy" Williamson was an American blues harmonica player, singer and songwriter. He is often regarded as the pioneer of the blues harp as a solo instrument. He played on hundreds of recordings by many pre–World War II blues artists. Under his own name, he was one of the most recorded blues musicians of the 1930s and 1940s and is closely associated with Chicago producer Lester Melrose and Bluebird Records. His popular songs, original or adapted, include "Good Morning, School Girl", "Sugar Mama", "Early in the Morning", and "Stop Breaking Down".
James Henry Cotton was an American blues harmonica player, singer and songwriter, who performed and recorded with many fellow blues artists and with his own band. He also played drums early in his career.
The American Folk Blues Festival was a music festival that toured Europe as an annual event for several years beginning in 1962. It introduced audiences in Europe, including the UK, to leading blues performers of the day such as Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, John Lee Hooker and Sonny Boy Williamson, most of whom had never previously performed outside the US. The tours attracted substantial media coverage, including TV shows, and contributed to the growth of the audience for blues music in Europe.
Carey Bell Harrington was an American blues musician who played harmonica in the Chicago blues style. Bell played harmonica and bass guitar for other blues musicians from the late 1950s to the early 1970s before embarking on a solo career. Besides his own albums, he recorded as an accompanist or duo artist with Earl Hooker, Robert Nighthawk, Lowell Fulson, Eddie Taylor, Louisiana Red and Jimmy Dawkins and was a frequent partner with his son, the guitarist Lurrie Bell. Blues Revue called Bell "one of Chicago's finest harpists." The Chicago Tribune said Bell was "a terrific talent in the tradition of Sonny Boy Williamson and Little Walter." In 2023, he was inducted in the Blues Hall of Fame.
"Bring It On Home" is a blues song written by American music arranger and songwriter Willie Dixon. Sonny Boy Williamson II recorded it in 1963, but the song was not released until 1966. Led Zeppelin adapted it in part as a homage to Williamson in 1969 and subsequently, the song has been recorded by several artists.
The Long Beach Blues Festival, in Long Beach, California, United States, was established fully in 1980, and was one of the largest blues festivals and was the second oldest on the West Coast. It was held on Saturday and Sunday of Labor Day weekend. For many years it was held on the athletic field on the California State University, Long Beach campus. The 2009 festival, the 30th annual, was held at Rainbow Lagoon in downtown Long Beach. The Festival went on hiatus in 2010, and has not been held since.
Sonny Boy Williamson & the Yardbirds is a live album by Chicago blues veteran Sonny Boy Williamson II backed by English rock band the Yardbirds. It was recorded at the Crawdaddy Club in Richmond, Surrey on December 8, 1963. However, the performances were not released until early 1966, after a string of Top 40 hits by the Yardbirds.
"One Way Out" is a blues song that was recorded in the early 1960s by both Sonny Boy Williamson II and Elmore James. A reworking of the song by G. L. Crockett, titled "It's a Man Down Here", appeared on the Billboard record charts in 1965. In 1971, the Allman Brothers Band recorded an updated live version of the song, which was included on their popular Eat a Peach album (1972).
The San Francisco Blues Festival was active from 1973 until 2008, and was located in San Francisco, California. It was the one of the longest running blues festival in the United States.
Luther Tucker was an American blues guitarist.
Mississippi Heat is an American blues band based in Chicago, led by harmonica player Pierre Lacocque. Formed in 1991, the band has toured in the United States, Canada, and Europe, with occasional performances in South America and North Africa.
Mark Hummel is an American blues harmonica player, vocalist, songwriter, and long-time bandleader of the Blues Survivors. Since 1991, Hummel has produced the Blues Harmonica Blowout tour, of which he is also a featured performer. The shows have featured blues harmonica players such as James Cotton, Carey Bell, John Mayall and Charlie Musselwhite. Although he is typically identified as performing West Coast blues, Hummel is also proficient in Delta blues, Chicago blues, swing and jazz styles. Hummel also played with the Golden State Lone Star Revue, a rock blues side group the FlashBacks, as well as the current edition of the Blues Survivors. Since 2021, Hummel and documentary film maker Jeff Vargen have collaborated on a video podcast, 'Mark Hummel's Harmonica Party' with both interviews and live performances of 50 blues and rock musicians including Charlie Musselwhite, Elvin Bishop, Barbara Dane, Nick Gravenites, Duke Robillard, Country Joe MacDonald, Barry Goldberg, Magic Dick, Lee Oskar, Willie Chambers, Anson Funderburgh, Angela Strehli, Chris Cain and others.
"That's All Right"or "That's Alright" is a blues song adapted by Chicago blues singer and guitarist Jimmy Rogers. He recorded it in 1950 with Little Walter on harmonica. Although based on earlier blues songs, music writer John Collis calls Rogers' rendition "one of the most tuneful and instantly memorable of all variations on the basic blues format". The song became a blues standard and has been recorded by numerous blues and other artists.
Houston Goff, known as Houston Stackhouse, was an American Delta blues guitarist and singer. He is best known for his association with Robert Nighthawk. He was not especially noted as a guitarist or singer, but Nighthawk showed gratitude to Stackhouse, his guitar teacher, by backing him on a number of recordings in the late 1960s. Apart from a brief tour in Europe, Stackhouse confined his performing to the area around the Mississippi Delta.
Joe Willie Wilkins was an American Memphis blues guitarist, singer and songwriter. He influenced his contemporaries Houston Stackhouse, Robert Nighthawk, David Honeyboy Edwards, and Jimmy Rogers, but he had a greater impact on up-and-coming guitarists, including Little Milton, B.B. King, and Albert King. Wilkins's songs include "Hard Headed Woman" and "It's Too Bad."
"Don't Start Me Talkin'" is a blues song written and performed by Sonny Boy Williamson II. It was Williamson's first single recorded for Checker Records, and reached number three in the US Billboard R&B chart in 1955.
Good Rockin' Charles was an American Chicago blues and electric blues harmonicist, singer and songwriter. He released one album in his lifetime and is best known for his work with Johnny "Man" Young, Otis "Big Smokey" Smothers, Arthur "Big Boy" Spires and Jimmy Rogers.