In 2021 Sugar Ray and his band won the prestigious Blues Blast Music Award for the Best Blues Band.Īnson Funderburgh is a long-time member of the Golden State – Lone Star Blues Revue guitarist born in 1954 in Plano, Texas where the youngster first picked up the guitar in high school and was hit by the blues bug through Jimmy Reed, and Lightnin’ Hopkins. This CD was nominated for five Blues Music Awards. King Entertainer of the Year! In 2020 Sugar Ray and the Bluetones featuring Little Charlie Baty recorded a new CD/album on Severn Records called “Too Far From The Bar”. Sugar Ray was nominated for an unprecedented seven Blues Music Awards in 2017 including Traditional Blues Male Artist and also the B.B. In 2016 Sugar Ray and his band The Bluetones released their CD called “Seeing Is Believing”. In 2012 Sugar Ray was inducted into the Rhode Island’s Music Hall of Fame. The band has stayed in very high regard receiving a total of 27 Blues Music Award Nominations which include winning two Blues Music Awards in 2014. Sugar Ray Norcia is a singer-harp man and also a three time Grammy Nominee whose career kicked into high gear in 1979 when he formed the original Sugar Ray and the Bluetones with guitar giant Ronnie Earl. John’s newest release Maybe The Last Time with Elvin Bishop is sitting at Number One on charts! John won the 2104 BMA for Best Soul Blues Male Artist, followed by “Memphis Grease” winning Best Soul Blues Album in 2015. In 2013 John relocated to Memphis, Tennessee, where he teamed up with producer Scott Bomar and his classic Memphis Soul band, the Bo-Keys, to create an album of revisited soul classics, “Memphis Grease” (2014 Blue Corn), which debuted at #4 on the Billboard Blues Chart. John followed up with two independently released live albums in 2012, “Blues Live” and “Soul Live.” John has also won two Blues Blast Music Awards – Best New Artist Debut Recording and Sean Costello Rising Star Award.

Living Blues enthused, “Magic Touch gives hope that the blues will survive.” In 2008 Németh was recruited by Elvin Bishop to do some performances and contribute four vocal tracks to his Grammy-nominated album “The Blues Rolls On.”Németh released two more albums on the Blind Pig label, “Love Me Tonight” (2009) & “Name The Day (2010), both hitting #6 on the Billboard Blues Chart, and beginning his long string of Blues Music Award (BMA) nominations, numbering 20 at last count. His national debut for that label, “Magic Touch” (2007), produced by Anson Funderburgh and featuring Junior Watson on guitar, received an ecstatic response from fans and the media, and he was hailed as the new voice of the blues. Duke’s newest release on Stony Plain is Blues Bash – Duke Robillard and Friends (both Mark Hummel and Bob Welsh appear).īoise, ID native JOHN NEMETH has talents that have not gone unnoticed and he soon signed a recording contract with Blind Pig Records. He was briefly guitarist in 2013 touring with Bob Dylan for the Time Out of Mind album. He formed a duo with Herb Ellis and the swing trio New Guitar Summit with Gerry Beaudoin and Jay Geils. Duke became a member of the Fabulous Thunderbirds in 1990. He started the Duke Robillard Band in 1981 eventually adopting the name Duke Robillard and the Pleasure Kings, with whom he toured throughout the 1980’s and recorded for Rounder Records. He spent over a decade leading Roomful of Blues before departing and becoming guitarist and singer with Robert Gordon and later a member of the Legendary Blues Band. He played in bands as Mike ‘Honey Bear’ Robillard and worked for the Guild Guitar Company. Although Robillard is best known as a rock and blues guitarist, he also plays jazz and swing. He founded the band Roomful of Blues in 1967 and was a member of the Fabulous Thunderbirds. In The Rolling Stone Record Guide (1979) music critic Dave Marsh described Magic Dick as possibly “the best white musician to ever play blues harmonica.”ĭUKE ROBILLARD Born October 4,1948 is an American guitarist and singer. It was the first song most baby boomers tried to learn on harmonica, along with “Room to Move”. Dick is one of the most famed harp blowers on earth, partially because “Whammer Jammer” was played on Armed Forces Radio in Vietnam all through the late’60’s until the war ended. Geils after the original band broke up, making two CDs for Rounder Records. Magic Dick went on to start ‘Bluestime’ with J. “Give It to Me” and Magic Dick’s own “Whammer Jammer” were in the Top Ten off and on for 20 years and made them one of the top bands (along with WAR) that featured harmonica prominently in the frontline. Chart-toppers like “Freeze Frame”, “Centerfold”, “First I Look at the Purse”, “Must A Got Lost”. Geils Band, whose many hits flooded the airwaves during the 1970’s and 1980’s. MAGIC DICK, born in 1945 Richard Salwitz in New London, Connecticut, is the original harp man from the J.

Whammer jammer harmonica key