American Blues

Roomful of Blues is an American blues and swing revival big band based in Rhode Island. With a recording career that spans over 50 years, they have toured worldwide and recorded many albums. Roomful of Blues, according to the Chicago Sun-Times, "Swagger, sway and swing with energy and precision". Since 1967, the group’s blend of swing, rock and roll, jump blues, boogie-woogie and soul has earned it five Grammy Award nominations and many other accolades, including seven Blues Music Awards (with a victory as Blues Band Of The Year in 2005). Billboard called the band "a tour de force of horn-fried blues…Roomful is so tight and so right." The Down Beat International Critics Poll has twice selected Roomful of Blues as Best Blues Band.

Household names like Muddy Waters, Sonny Boy Williamson, Otis Span, Memphis Slim and Willie Dixon feature alongside lesser stars such as Billy Stepney, Victoria Spivey, Matt 'Guitar' Murphy and Big Joe Williams. To use the DVD package notes, the 1960' European tours by American Blues artists were legendary. They introduced a music that had only been previously available on hard-to-find discs to a new generation of young people and changed the face of our popular music forever. Blues fans finally got a chance to see theirs idols in the flesh with many of them caught on film.

In 2004, Harmon and his band, the Mid South Blues Revue, sponsored by the Southern California Blues Society, traveled to Memphis and won the Blues Foundation’s prestigious International Blues Challenge title of "Best Unsigned Band."
His next release, in 2005, was "The Blues According To Zacariah", which garnered major national airplay, including XM, Sirius and the American Blues Network. XM listeners voted Harmon “Best New Blues Artist” in the inaugural XM Nation Awards in 2005. In 2006, Harmon won the coveted Blues Music Award for "Best New Artist Debut" for "The Blues According to Zacariah".

John Lee Curtis "Sonny Boy" Williamson (March 30, 1914 – June 1, 1948) was an American blues harmonica player, singer and songwriter. He is often regarded as the pioneer of the blues harp as a solo instrument and played on hundreds of blues recordings for many pre-World War II blues artist…

Take the primal wail of American Blues and amplify them beyond the point with no limitations. Jay Gordon continues to shake planet earth with his onslaught of Electric Voodoo Blues. When you listen to this CD you will see how Jay has moved the blues forward to the 21st century, infusing the music with the fire and power of rock while carving out his own place in the music world. This CD features songs like, Dockery's Plantation (for Robert Johnson), World Blues, Slow Burn/Biker Mama, Red Hot Tempered Woman and more, even a bonus track in honor of the late great Phillip Walker.. Joining Jay on this CD is Bassist: Sharon Butcher, Drummer: Rich Gordon Lambert, Hammond B3 & Piano: Harlen Spector, Mississippi Saxophone: Mario Ramirez (Younger brother of the great Richie Valens) also on Hammond B3 & Piano: Rich Wenzel. For all Blues/Rock fans everywhere we created "Blues Venom - No Cure".

The first major blues and jazz singer on record and one of the most powerful of all time, Bessie Smith rightly earned the title of "The Empress of the Blues." Even on her first records in 1923, her passionate voice overcame the primitive recording quality of the day and still communicates easily to today's listeners (which is not true of any other singer from that early period). At a time when the blues were in and most vocalists (particularly vaudevillians) were being dubbed "blues singers," Bessie Smith simply had no competition. Back in 1912, Bessie Smith sang in the same show as Ma Rainey, who took her under her wing and coached her. Although Rainey would achieve a measure of fame throughout her career, she was soon surpassed by her protégée. In 1920, Smith had her own show in Atlantic City and, in 1923, she moved to New York.

In 2004, Harmon and his band, the Mid South Blues Revue, sponsored by the Southern California Blues Society, traveled to Memphis and won the Blues Foundation’s prestigious International Blues Challenge title of "Best Unsigned Band."
His next release, in 2005, was "The Blues According To Zacariah", which garnered major national airplay, including XM, Sirius and the American Blues Network. XM listeners voted Harmon “Best New Blues Artist” in the inaugural XM Nation Awards in 2005. In 2006, Harmon won the coveted Blues Music Award for "Best New Artist Debut" for "The Blues According to Zacariah".