Bluzapalooza III

BILLY GIBSON:

Billy Gibson first picked up the harmonica at a very young age. “It was cheap and I could easily make sounds with it.” After high school, Gibson’s desire for learning and improving as a musician took him to Clarksdale, Mississippi, where he played with blues guitarist Johnnie Billington and drummer Bobby Little in Billington’s group The Midnighters. “Johnnie and Bobby taught me how to make it in this business,” Gibson recalls.

Like many before him, Gibson eventually left Mississippi for Memphis.

“Beale Street was my university of blues,” recalls Gibson, referring to the lessons learned as a Beale Street performer. “For a young musician, all you have to do is look and listen and you can learn so much.”

Gibson’s talent and commitment have not gone unrecognized. He received an endorsement from Hohner, his harmonica of choice in 1999. He has made guest appearances on national recording artists’ CDs including Deborah Coleman’s Soft Place To Fall (Blind Pig 2000) and Michael Burks’ I Smell Smoke (Alligator 2003). Around the same time, Gibson received a BA in music from the University of Memphis.

Gibson’s career has taken him all over the world including the inaugural BLUZAPALOOZA tour to Iraq in April of 2008. 

Affectionately known as “The Prince of Beale Street”, this Beale Street Entertainer of the Year is also a multiple Blues Music Award nominee.

EDEN BRENT:

A native of the Mississippi Delta, Eden Brent is known for her amazing piano playing and combustible voice.  With a vast repertoire of original and standard Blues songs, Eden is one of the busiest Blues artists in the country today performing throughout the United States and around the globe.

Whether booked as a solo artist or bandleader, Eden's performance is fresh and spontaneous, often filled with audience requests and participation. She appears at festivals, concerts and clubs and organizes workshops and educational performances for virtually every age and proficiency level.

Mississippi Number One, the new album on Yellow Dog Records, features tributes to her Mississippi Delta home including the title track, "Mississippi Number One," "Mississippi Flatland Blues," "Darkness on the Delta" and "Fried Chicken."

Her unshakable talent and her carefree demeanor have taken her across the country and around the world. Here's what some reviewers have said about her.

"Eden Brent's boogie and Blues piano mixed with the whiskey-smoke of her voice is a vice to savor and in her huge playing and singing you can hear the ghosts of Mississippi in duet with the future of the blues." - Chip Eagle, publisher of Blues Revue.

DELTA HIGHWAY:

In a generation that has forgotten its musical roots, Delta Highway breathes youth and energy back into the blues.

With strong guitar sounds reminiscent of Muddy Waters and R.L. Burnside, combined with a progressive harmonica sound, this Memphis band has developed a style that is all their own and sure to please new and veteran blues fans alike.

Delta Highway was born in the Piedmont region of North Carolina, founded by vocalist / harmonica player Brandon Santini and guitarist Justin Sulek in 2003.

The two moved to Memphis later that year to absorb the sounds and history of the delta region where the blues runs wild. The Delta Highway sound is similar to a massive freight train splitting the tracks left behind with an engineer and brake man high on Jack Daniels’.

Frontman Brandon Santini was inspired while in his mid-teens and learned about the blues from heavyweights such as Paul Butterfield, Little Walter, Kim Wilson, and Junior Wells. Santini brings youth to the instrument and presents his thick tones with his fiery quick runs that seems to grab the attention of younger music fans as well as satisfying traditionalists. He has also developed into a very soulful vocalist while he brings a rather unique but traditional style to the mic.

Guitarist Justin Sulek began playing guitar after hearing his father’s blues records throughout his childhood. He remembers hearing the blues played by legends such as Stevie Ray Vaughan, Buddy Guy, and Lightnin’ Hopkins and becoming inspired by the pure honest playing styles by each of the bluesmen. Speaking of pure, that’s what you get with Sulek’s playing style. He delivers fiery licks and continues to amaze audiences with his bottleneck solos.

The band’s rhythm section consists of  Paul Chase (Jon Short & The Barrelhouse Ramblers and Brotherhood of Groove) on bass and Keven Eddy (Mojo Buford Band, Blind Mississippi Morris & The Pocket Rockets) on drums. The two are the perfect fit for a rhythm section and were seemingly tailored to handle backup duties for Brandon Santini and Justin Sulek.

These four men are well respected by veteran musicians and lay down one of the freshest blues sounds in years. Currently a favorite on world famous Beale St. in Memphis, TN, the band represented the Memphis Blues Society in the International Blues Challenge by winning the Memphis Blues Society’s Battle of the Blues.

With the release of their debut album "Westbound Blues" the band took listeners on a trip to major blues towns and regions like Chicago, Texas, the delta, and the hill country region of northern Mississippi.

On November 9th 2007 they released "The Devil Had A Woman", which shows the maturity of these growing artists. It grabs you with the opening track and does not let you go. The CDs 10 songs are written by Delta Highway and prove that they are equally gifted blues musicians as they are song writers. Though out the CD, this band shows its different influences while delivering pure blues.

On December 16th 2008 Delta Highway was nominated for the 2009 Blues Music Awards for Best New Debut Artist.