Emmylou Harris is an American singer, songwriter, and musician. She has released dozens of albums and singles over the course of her career and won 14 Grammys, the Polar Music Prize, and numerous other honors, including induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Wikipedia
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Christone Kingfish Ingram
“Kingfish”
Christone “Kingfish” Ingram is a Grammy Award-winning blues guitarist and singer from Clarksdale, Mississippi, who is celebrated for reinvigorating the blues for a new generation. He began his musical journey at the Delta Blues Museum, mastering multiple instruments as a child before focusing on the guitar. Blending traditional Delta and Chicago blues with modern blues-rock, soul, and gospel, his music captivates audiences with its passion and technical skill.
Ingram quickly rose to prominence as a teenager, garnering millions of views for his YouTube performances, appearing in the Netflix series Luke Cage, and performing at the White House. His 2019 debut album, Kingfish, earned a Grammy nomination and shot to the top of the Billboard Blues Chart. His 2021 follow-up, 662—named for his Mississippi Delta area code—secured a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album. His live performances are also critically acclaimed, with NPR noting he is “even scarier live”.
A prolific artist, Ingram has performed alongside musical legends like Buddy Guy, who has called him “the next explosion of the blues,” and even opened for The Rolling Stones. In 2024, Ingram launched his own label, Red Zero Records, and released his studio album, Hard Road. As a multi-instrumentalist with a powerful voice, Ingram continues to push the boundaries of the genre while honoring its rich history.
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The Nighthawks
What sustains a band for more than three decades? Not a hit radio band, but a roll-up-your-sleeves/drive to the next gig overnight/carry your own gear up the steps and night after night make people happy kind of band. One that makes them dance; sends them home to come back again—and again. What makes that kind band stay together through relatively few personnel changes? Answer: A good idea; a universal yet somehow unique, good idea.
The Nighthawks sought not so much to reinvent rock and roll, but simply to have it reinvent itself by taking the original ingredients and following—if somewhat loosely—the original recipe. And like good cooks, the individual personalities involved ultimately affected the outcome.
The band was over 10 years old and had baffled the mainstream industry before the term “roots rock” was coined to explain the likes of West Coasters like Los Lobos and The Blasters. By then, the affiliation with many of the living blues greats seemed to brand The Nighthawks a “blues band” despite the fact that they played with Carl Perkins as well as Muddy Waters.
The Nighthawks had its genesis when lead singer-harmonica player extraordinaire Mark Wenner returned to his native Washington, D.C. after six years in New York City, lured back by the success of his friend Bobby Radcliff’s local acclaim with a blues band. Mark joined forces with a then very young Jimmy Thackery and formed The Nighthawks in 1972. They spent a couple of years building The Nighthawks’ reputation with a revolving cast of characters until, in 1974, they decided to get the best rhythm section the area had to offer: Jan Zukowski on bass and Pete Ragusa on drums.
The Nighthawks set off on a musical mystery tour that took them to 49 states and a dozen countries. They played with nearly all the living blues legends as well as a new generation of bands, sometimes called “the Blue Wave”, and released several important albums including the best-selling Jacks and Kingswith Pinetop Perkins, Luther “Guitar Junior” Johnson, Calvin Jones and Bob Margolin. (Servern Records 2017)
Could not resist the throwback video..enjoy
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Hot Tuna/Jorma Kaukonen & Jack Casady
Jorma & Jack (aka Hot Tuna)
Hot Tuna is an American blues band formed in 1969 by former Jefferson Airplane members Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady. Although it has always been a fluid aggregation, with musicians coming and going over the years, the band’s name has essentially become a metonym for Kaukonen and Casady’s ongoing collaboration. Wikipedia
Don’t miss Hesitation Blues -circa 1970
