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Fifth Anniversary Class Also Includes Los Lobos And Ray Charles

“Rollicking, playful, good-time blues and intimate, reflective balladry...her songs ring with emotional depth.”

–Rolling Stone

 Texas-born, Louisiana-raised pianist, songwriter and vocalist -- and official 2018 Texas State Musician -- Marcia Ball will be inducted into the Austin City Limits Hall Of Fame on October 25, 2018. This will be the fifth anniversary class of Hall Of Fame inductees, which also includes Los Lobos and Ray Charles. Previous inductees include Willie Nelson, B.B. King, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Bonnie Raitt, Asleep At The Wheel, Loretta Lynn, Townes Van Zandt and others.

The ceremony will be hosted by Chris Isaak and will take place in Austin, Texas at ACL Live At The Moody Theater. Guests announced so far include Dan Auerbach, Irma Thomas and Tracy Nelson. Musical highlights and inductions from the ceremony will air nationally on PBS in a special New Year's Eve broadcast of Austin City Limits.

According to Ball, this is among the biggest honors of her 50-year career. "Austin City Limits put Austin on the map all over the country. Whenever we are touring, when I say where we are from, the immediate response from our fans is, 'Austin City Limits.' People in outlying towns would drive to major cities, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Atlanta, because they had seen us on the show. In the years when my broadcasts were current, I could have filled a 90 minute tape with the words, 'I never heard of you before, but I saw you on Austin City Limits.' ACL opened the door into millions of homes for us and other regional bands. Some of my most memorable musical moments have been as a performer or in the audience at an Austin City Limits show.  I was always honored to be asked to play ACL and I am thrilled and grateful to be inducted into the Hall Of Fame."

Currently celebrating 50 years as a professional musician, Ball has won worldwide fame and countless fans for her ability to ignite a full-scale roadhouse rhythm and blues party every time she takes the stage. Her rollicking Texas boogies, swampy New Orleans ballads and groove-laden Gulf Coast blues have made her a one-of-a-kind favorite with music lovers all over the world. The New York Times says, “Marcia Ball plays two-fisted New Orleans barrelhouse piano and sings in a husky, knowing voice about all the trouble men and women can get into on the way to a good time.”

With 2018 release, Shine Bright, Ball set out to, in her words, “Make the best Marcia Ball record I could make.” In doing so, she has put together the most musically substantial, hopeful and uplifting set of songs of her five-decade career. Produced by Steve Berlin (Los Lobos) and recorded in Texas and Louisiana, Shine Bright contains twelve songs, including nine originals. “It is a ridiculously hopeful, cheerful record,” she says, in light of some of the album’s more serious subject matter. The secret, according to Ball, “is to set the political songs to a good dance beat.”

Born in Orange, Texas in 1949 to a family whose female members all played piano, Ball grew up in the small town of Vinton, Louisiana, right across the border from Texas. Seeing an Irma Thomas performance in 1962 and falling under the spell of Professor Longhair's piano playing convinced Ball to seek out a career in music. She led a couple of early psychedelic country rock bands before pursuing her solo career from her adopted hometown of Austin, Texas.

After her 1978 Capitol Records debut, Circuit Queen, and a series of successful albums on Rounder Records, Ball joined Alligator in 2001 with the release of the critically acclaimed Presumed Innocent, the first of her six releases for the label, four of which have been Grammy nominated. Altogether she holds ten Blues Music Awards, ten Living Blues Awards, and five Grammy Award nominations. She has been inducted into both the Gulf Coast Music Hall Of Fame and the Louisiana Music Hall Of Fame. The Texas State legislature named her the official 2018 Texas State Musician. According to The Houston Chronicle, “Marcia Ball’s brand of blues lifts the spirit. She’s as perfect an artist as could be."

 

Rick Estrin & The Nightcats Win Band Of The Year

Estrin Also Wins Song Of The Year And Traditional Male Artist Of The Year

Curtis Salgado Wins Soul Blues Male Artist Of The Year

 On Thursday, May 10, 2018, The Blues Foundation announced the winners of the 39th Annual Blues Music Awards, the blues world's highest honors. Alligator Records artists Rick Estrin, his band Rick Estrin & The Nightcats and soul singer Curtis Salgado all won awards.The ceremony was held in Memphis at the Cook Convention Center.

Internationally beloved blues masters Rick Estrin & The Nightcats took home one of the evening's biggest prizes, the highly coveted Band Of The Year award. Estrin also won the statues for Song Of The Year (for The Blues Ain't Goin' Nowhere, from the band's latest CD, Groovin' In Greaseland) and for Traditional Blues Male Artist Of The Year.

Soul and blues vocalist Curtis Salgado received the award for Soul Blues Male Artist Of The Year, a distinction he has won five previous times. His latest album is the critically acclaimed Rough Cut, an acoustic tour-de-force with guitarist Alan Hager.

“When I first started out, I couldn't find a singer I liked and I couldn't find a drummer I liked, so I decided to do both.”     –Lindsay Beaver

Alligator Records has signed blues-rocking, soul-singing drummer/bandleader, Lindsay Beaver. Her as-yet-untitled label debut is set for release in October, 2018. Beaver is a true force of nature. Her influences range from Little Richard to The Ramones, from Billie Holiday to Amy Winehouse. But her sound and style are hers alone.

Beaver, hailing from Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada and now residing in Austin, Texas, possesses an old soul at the young age of 33. She is a classically trained vocalist and a jazz trained drummer with a deep love and knowledge of roots music, from blues to jazz to R&B ballads to raucous punk rock. Live, her voice and drums are front and center as she bares her soul, singing her signature mix of originals and covers of songs by artists as diverse as Little Willie John and The Detroit Cobras.

"Signing with Alligator is a true stamp of approval for any roots music artist," says Beaver, who has been releasing her own recordings and performing professionally for 15 years, first as a singer and then as a band-leading vocalist and drummer. "It's like a dream come true."

Alligator Records president Bruce Iglauer is thrilled to bring her into the fold. "I’m very excited to welcome Lindsay Beaver to the Alligator Records family. She’s a great young talent. Her songs evoke the spirit of 1950s and '60s R&B and blues, but her singing and playing infuse them with a raw, rocking punk energy. Her music is full of unvarnished emotion and power. She’s like the love child of Amy Winehouse and Little Richard."

As a young girl, Beaver sang. A lot. But only when she was alone. Growing up in a working-class neighborhood, she became enamored with music at an an early age. At 11, she discovered Tupac Shakur and fell in love with hip hop, which led her on a path back to soul, blues and jazz. At 14 she heard Jimi Hendrix and then, in her words, "everything changed." She got a guitar and learned to play. Convinced to sing in public by her high school friends, she entered the school's talent show, performing in front of an audience for the very first time.

After high school she received a scholarship to train as a classical soprano. At the same time, she put together a small jazz band. "We rehearsed at my house," she recalls, "but my drummer didn't want to keep bringing his drums over. So my dad scraped together enough money to buy a drum set to keep in the house. Not for me, for our drummer. But I sat down at that set and as soon as I did, I got it." She started playing at the Sunday night blues jam at the local bar. The veteran house band took her under their wing, introducing her to hundreds of blues songs and artists.

Wanting to broaden her horizons, Beaver headed to Toronto to study jazz drumming, taking her already impressive drum skills to a whole new level. "I got in," she recalls, "because I was the only applicant who could play a shuffle." She started another band -- the acclaimed 24th Street Wailers -- and began making a name for herself in Toronto and across Canada. She befriended guitarist Jimmie Vaughan, who recognized her talent and suggested she relocate to Austin, Texas, which she did in 2014. She formed a new band featuring her own soulful vocals and dynamic drumming and the fiery talents of guitarist Brad Stivers.

Over the course of her career, Beaver self-released five albums with the 24th Street Wailers and has toured throughout Canada, the United States and large swaths of Europe. The new Alligator release will be the first under her own name. "I like music with drive and passion," she says. "I write what I know and I sing what I know. At my shows, I want people to have fun and to be moved. I want everyone to be inspired to dance and I want at least some people to be moved to tears. And I definitely want every person to go home saying, 'I'm never going to forget this.'"

“Rollicking, playful, good-time blues and intimate, reflective balladry...her songs ring with emotional depth.”

–Rolling Stone

Texas-born, Louisiana-raised pianist, songwriter and vocalist Marcia Ball will appear on NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday on April 28. Ball, the 2018 Texas State Musician Of The Year, released her dynamic new Alligator Records album, Shine Bright, on Friday, April 20. Weekend Edition Saturday, hosted by Scott Simon, is heard on NPR member stations across the United States, and around the globe on NPR Worldwide.

Currently celebrating 50 years as a professional musician, Ball has won worldwide fame and countless fans for her ability to ignite a full-scale roadhouse rhythm and blues party every time she takes the stage. Her rollicking Texas boogies, swampy New Orleans ballads and groove-laden Gulf Coast blues have made her a one-of-a-kind favorite with music lovers all over the world. The New York Times says, “Marcia Ball plays two-fisted New Orleans barrelhouse piano and sings in a husky, knowing voice about all the trouble men and women can get into on the way to a good time.”

With Shine Bright, Ball set out to, in her words, “Make the best Marcia Ball record I could make.” In doing so, she has put together the most musically substantial, hopeful and uplifting set of songs of her five-decade career. Produced by Steve Berlin (Los Lobos) and recorded in Texas and Louisiana, Shine Bright contains twelve songs, including nine originals. They range from the title track’s rousing appeal for public and private acts of courage to the humorous advice of Life Of The Party, and from the upbeat call to action of Pots And Pans (a song inspired by renowned Texas political writer and humorist Molly Ivins) to the poignantly optimistic World Full Of Love. Throughout the album, the intensity of Ball’s conviction never wavers while, simultaneously, the fun never stops. Shine Bright is exactly the album Ball set out to make. “It is a ridiculously hopeful, cheerful record,” she says, in light of some of the album’s more serious subject matter. The secret, according to Ball, “is to set the political songs to a good dance beat.”

Born in Orange, Texas in 1949 to a family whose female members all played piano, Ball grew up in the small town of Vinton, Louisiana, right across the border from Texas. Seeing an Irma Thomas performance in 1962 and falling under the spell of Professor Longhair's piano playing convinced Ball to seek out a career in music. She led a couple of early psychedelic country rock bands before pursuing her solo career from her adopted hometown of Austin, Texas.

After her 1978 Capitol Records debut, Circuit Queen, and a series of successful albums on Rounder Records, Ball joined Alligator in 2001 with the release of the critically acclaimed Presumed Innocent, the first of her six releases for the label, four of which have been Grammy nominated. Altogether she holds ten Blues Music Awards, ten Living Blues Awards, and five Grammy Award nominations. She has been inducted into both the Gulf Coast Music Hall Of Fame and the Louisiana Music Hall Of Fame. The Texas State legislature named her the official 2018 Texas State Musician. According to The Houston Chronicle, “Marcia Ball’s brand of blues lifts the spirit. She’s as perfect an artist as could be."

New CD, The High Cost Of Low Living, Debuted At #3 On The Billboard Blues Chart

 Nick Moss's muscular, electric energy combines jaw-dropping guitar, gruff, soulful vocals and impassioned songwriting. Gruenling is a contemporary harmonica master...impressive, genuine and fresh-sounding. --Living Blues

The Nick Moss Band Featuring Dennis Gruenling, whose newly-released Alligator Records debut CD The High Cost Of Low Living entered the Billboard Blues Chart at #3, recently recorded a live performance for NPR's celebrated music show, Mountain Stage. Over 240 NPR member stations around the country will begin airing the program this Friday, March 30. Air times and stations can be found here.

 

The High Cost Of Low Living is already earning rave reviews, as are the band's must-see live shows. The album is a tour de force of the classic Chicago blues ensemble sound that world class guitarist/vocalist Moss and master harmonicist/vocalist Gruenling know, live and love. AllMusic says, "The album makes the case for the vitality of old-fashioned Chicago electric blues in the 21^st century."

The High Cost Of Low Living is no recycling of old songs. Moss wrote eight memorable new originals and Gruenling wrote two, all deeply rooted in the blues tradition with a touch of old school rock ‘n’ roll. Produced by guitarist Kid Andersen and Moss and recorded at Rancho de Rhythm in Elgin, Illinois, the album is a joyous sonic blast of pure blues power.

With the release of The High Cost Of Low Living, The Nick Moss Band Featuring Dennis Gruenling will do what they do best: barnstorm the globe, bringing their muscular, high-energy show to clubs, concert halls, roadhouses and festival stages night after night. It is a show that is not to be missed. Current tour dates can be found here.

According to Moss, “I’m a shy person, but when the band and I get on stage, the music takes over. We can’t hold back and the energy just comes pouring out. We get carried away and the audience gets carried away with us.”

“Rollicking, playful, good-time blues and intimate, reflective balladry...her songs ring with emotional depth.”

–Rolling Stone

Alligator Records has announced an April 20, 2018 release date for Shine Bright, the dynamic new album from Texas-born, Louisiana-raised pianist, songwriter and vocalist Marcia Ball. Ball, the 2018 Texas State Musician Of The Year, has won worldwide fame and countless fans for her ability to ignite a full-scale roadhouse rhythm and blues party every time she takes the stage. For fifty years, her rollicking Texas boogies, swampy New Orleans ballads and groove-laden Gulf Coast blues have made her a one-of-a-kind favorite with music lovers all over the world. The New York Times says, “Marcia Ball plays two-fisted New Orleans barrelhouse piano and sings in a husky, knowing voice about all the trouble men and women can get into on the way to a good time.” The Houston Chronicle says simply, “She’s as perfect as an artist can be.”

With Shine Bright, Ball set out to, in her words, “Make the best Marcia Ball record I could make.” In doing so, she has put together the most musically substantial, hopeful and uplifting set of songs of her five-decade career. Produced by Steve Berlin (Los Lobos) and recorded in Texas and Louisiana, Shine Bright contains twelve songs (including nine originals), ranging from the title track’s rousing appeal for public and private acts of courage to the upbeat call to action of Pots And Pans, a song inspired by renowned Texas political writer and humorist Molly Ivins. From the humorous advice of Life Of The Party to the poignantly optimistic World Full Of Love, the intensity of Ball’s conviction never wavers while, simultaneously, the fun never stops. Shine Bright is exactly the album Ball set out to make. “It is a ridiculously hopeful, cheerful record,” she says, in light of some of the album’s more serious subject matter. The secret, according to Ball “is to set the political songs to a good dance beat.”

Born in Orange, Texas in 1949 to a family whose female members all played piano, Ball grew up in the small town of Vinton, Louisiana, right across the border from Texas. Seeing an Irma Thomas performance in 1962 and falling under the spell of Professor Longhair's piano playing convinced Ball to seek out a career in music. She led a couple of early psychedelic country rock bands before pursuing her solo career from her adopted hometown of Austin, Texas.

After her 1978 Capitol Records debut, Circuit Queen, and a series of successful albums on Rounder Records, Ball joined Alligator in 2001 with the release of the critically acclaimed Presumed Innocent, the first of her six releases for the label, four of which are Grammy nominated. Altogether she holds ten Blues Music Awards, ten Living Blues Awards, and five Grammy Award nominations. She has been inducted into both the Gulf Coast Music Hall Of Fame and the Louisiana Music Hall Of Fame. The Texas State legislature named her the official 2018 Texas State Musician. As her hometown Austin Chronicle says, “What’s not to like about Marcia Ball?”

Since joining Alligator, Ball has blossomed as a songwriter. Each album has been filled with fresh, original songs, never more so than on Shine Bright. Ball easily draws her listeners deep into her music with instantly memorable melodies and imaginative imagery. Her songs paint vibrant musical pictures richly detailed with recognizable characters, regional flavors, universal themes and colorful scenes, both real and imagined. Living Blues declares, “Her originals sound like timeless classics and southern soul masterpieces that no one else can imitate.”

Now, with Shine Bright, Ball’s new, aggressively hopeful songs are energized by Steve Berlin’s inventive and exciting production, creating electrifying music that is daring, inspired, poignant and timely. The Boston Globe calls Ball “a compelling storyteller” who plays “an irresistible, celebratory blend of rollicking, two-fisted New Orleans piano, Louisiana swamp rock and smoldering Texas blues.”

Of course, Ball will bring the party on the road, playing her new songs and old favorites for fans around the globe. “I still love the feel of the wheels rolling,” she says, “and the energy in a room full of people ready to go wherever it is we take them.” With both her new album and her legendary live performances, Marcia Ball will shine a light into the darkness, making the world a brighter place one song at a time.

Tinsley Ellis' Winning Hand #1
Curtis Salgado & Alan Hager's Rough Cut #2
Tommy Castro & The Painkillers' Stompin' Ground #7

Recordings by Alligator Records artists currently sit atop the influential Billboard Blues Chart for the week ending January 18, 2018. The label's two January 12 releases -- Tinsley Ellis' Winning Hand and Curtis Salgado & Alan Hager's Rough Cut -- debut at the #1 and #2 spots respectively. Tommy Castro & The Painkillers' Stompin' Ground, released on September 29, 2017, currently holds the #7 spot, re-emerging after spending seven previous weeks on the chart.

Recorded in Nashville and produced by Tinsley Ellis and keyboardist Kevin McKendree, the ten brilliantly performed, fervently sung tracks on Winning Hand include nine originals, ranging from blistering blues to heart-pounding rock to soulful ballads. “Guitar, guitar, guitar is what this album is all about,” says Ellis, who recorded primarily with his 1959 Fender Stratocaster, his 1967 Gibson ES 345 and his 1973 Les Paul Deluxe. Guitar World says, “Ellis’ playing sparkles with depth and subtlety. Whether playing deep, slow blues or uptempo rockers, Ellis rides a gorgeously fat, pure tone.”

Ellis is currently on a coast-to-coast four month North American Tour. Tour dates can be found here.

Rough Cut is the first collaborative album from award-winning soul, blues and R&B vocalist Curtis Salgado and renowned guitarist Alan Hager. Salgado's earth-shaking vocals and forceful harmonica playing have been devastating audiences around the world for over 30 years. Guitarist Alan Hager has been wowing fellow musicians from his hometown of Portland, Oregon and beyond for decades. With Curtis’ inspired singing and world-class harmonica playing and Alan’s spellbinding guitar, Rough Cut is the album Salgado and Hager have always wanted to make together – soulful, sparse and haunting. The music is a moving exploration of the joyful, emotionally uplifting power of passionately played and soulfully sung acoustic blues.

Tour dates can be found here.

On Stompin’ Ground, Tommy Castro, a native of San Jose, CA, opens windows both into his past and his always-evolving musical future. Produced by Castro and guitar wunderkind Kid Andersen, Stompin’ Ground finds Castro unleashing a set of 12 potent tracks featuring seven originals and new versions of songs he learned and played as a young up-and-comer. He is simultaneously looking back with autobiographical originals and cover songs that inspired him, while forging a forward trail with up-to-the-minute lyrics atop blistering blues-rock. Castro’s friends Charlie Musselwhite (harp and vocals), Mike Zito (guitar and vocals), Danielle Nicole (vocals) and David Hidalgo (guitar and vocals) add their talents to Stompin’ Ground.

Tour dates can be found here.

 

THE HIGH COST OF LOW LIVING

 Nick Moss's muscular, electric energy combines jaw-dropping guitar, gruff, soulful vocals and impassioned songwriting. Gruenling is a contemporary harmonica master...impressive, genuine and fresh-sounding. --Living Blues

Alligator Records has set a Friday, March 9, 2018 release date for The High Cost Of Low Living, the blistering label debut by The Nick Moss Band Featuring Dennis Gruenling. The album is a tour de force of the classic Chicago blues ensemble sound that world class guitarist/vocalist Moss and master harmonicist/vocalist Gruenling know, live and love.

The High Cost Of Low Living is no recycling of old songs. Moss wrote eight memorable new originals and Gruenling wrote two, all deeply rooted in the blues tradition with a touch of old school rock ‘n’ roll. Produced by guitarist Kid Andersen and Moss and recorded at Rancho de Rhythm in Elgin, Illinois, the album is a joyous sonic blast of pure blues power.

Although Moss and Gruenling had known each other for 20 years and had jammed together often, it wasn’t until 2016 that they decided to team up full time. Moss’ deeply rooted yet fully modern guitar playing flawlessly meshes with Gruenling’s monster harmonica chops. On stage, the two communicate seemingly telepathically, as Moss lays down the deepest blues licks and Gruenling’s harmonica wails and howls in perfect response, with Moss’ top-notch band adding their energy and expertise to the ensemble. And the world is taking notice. On January 9, 2018, The Nick Moss Band received a Blues Music Award nomination for the coveted Band Of The Year Award, and Gruenling was nominated as Best Instrumentalist - Harmonica.

Chicago guitarist, vocalist and songwriter Nick Moss is a bona fide bluesman down to his soul, a 30-year veteran of the city’s take-no-prisoners blues scene. Moss paid his dues gigging in Chicago’s rough and tumble West and South side blues clubs under the tutelage of some of the city’s greatest blues luminaries. Blues Revue says, “Nick Moss is at the top of the blues world...ambitious and intense...He can play traditional blues with the best.” New Jersey’s Dennis Gruenling is considered among today’s best blues harmonica players. His high-energy, full-throttle playing prompted Blues Revue to call him "a leading light among a new generation of harp players...a true innovator."

Growing up in Chicago and standing tall at 6’2”, Nick Moss dreamed of playing both music and sports. When kidney surgery sidelined his athletic hopes, he dove headfirst into the blues. His mother was a huge blues fan, even taking a young Nick to see bluesmen like Muddy Waters live in concert. Originally a bass player, Moss got his first professional break touring and playing bass with legendary West Side Chicago guitarist Jimmy “Fast Fingers” Dawkins. He next toured with Willie “Big Eyes” Smith (longtime Muddy Waters’ drummer), leader of the Legendary Blues Band. Finding himself in need of a guitarist, Smith insisted Moss switch instruments. Combining his natural talent with non-stop woodshedding and playing every open jam session, Moss quickly became one of the city’s most highly sought-after players. Bluesman Jimmy Rogers (famous for his pioneering guitar work with Muddy Waters and for his solo hit Walking By Myself) hired Moss to join his touring band and became his mentor. Moss’ other influences include B.B. King, Freddie King, Earl Hooker, Magic Slim and other groundbreaking players.

Moss formed his own band in 1997 and released the first of his 12 solo albums a year later on his own independent Blue Bella label. He’s received 22 Blues Music Award nominations and has earned legions of fans around the world, playing over 100 shows a year. Moss has shared stages with Buddy Guy, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Gary Clark, Jr., David Hidalgo and many others, and is an in-demand guest, always welcome to sit in with his musician friends around the world. Elmore calls him “one of the best guitarists on the scene today.”

As a teen, Dennis Gruenling heard the Alligator recording Harp Attack! (a summit meeting of James Cotton, Junior Wells, Carey Bell and Billy Branch) and decided that blues harmonica was his life’s calling. Gruenling was inspired by blues harp masters including Cotton, Little Walter and George “Harmonica” Smith as well as by saxophonists, including Lester Young and Red Prysock. A self-taught player and a natural entertainer with seven solo albums to his credit, Gruenling’s giant, fat-toned harp work, raw-boned singing and untamed energy are a perfect foil for Moss’ hair-raising guitar playing and straight-from-the-shoulder blues vocals.

With the release of The High Cost Of Low Living, The Nick Moss Band Featuring Dennis Gruenling will do what they do best: barnstorm the globe, bringing their muscular, high-energy show to clubs, concert halls, roadhouses and festival stages night after night. It is a show that is not to be missed. According to Moss, “I’m a shy person, but when the band and I get on stage, the music takes over. We can’t hold back and the energy just comes pouring out. We get carried away and the audience gets carried away with us.”

On Tuesday, January 9, 2018, The Blues Foundation announced the nominees for the 39th Annual Blues Music Awards, the blues world's highest honors. Ten Alligator recording artists received a total of 18 nominations.
 
Rick Estrin, leader of Rick Estrin & The Nightcats, received seven nominations, including the B.B. King Entertainer Of The Year, Album Of The Year (for Groovin' In Greaseland) and Song Of The Year (for The Blues Ain't Goin' Nowhere). Estrin was also recognized with nominations for Best Instrumentalist - Harmonica, Traditional Blues Male Artist Of The Year and Traditional Blues Album Of The Year. Nightcats' guitarist Kid Andersen received a nomination for Best Instrumentalist - Guitar.
 
Rick Estrin & The Nightcats, The Nick Moss Band and The Cash Box Kings were all nominated for the coveted Band Of The Year award. Nick Moss Band harmonica player Dennis Gruenling received a nomination for Best Instrumentalist - Harmonica.

In addition, The Cash Box Kings' Royal Mint and Elvin Bishop's Elvin Bishop's Big Fun Trio were nominated for Traditional Blues Album Of The Year.

Blues visionary Selwyn Birchwood received nominations for Contemporary Blues Album Of The Year (for Pick Your Poison) and Contemporary Blues Male Artist Of The Year. Fellow blues groundbreaker Toronzo Cannon was also nominated for Contemporary Blues Male Artist Of The Year.

Shemekia Copeland was nominated as Contemporary Blues Female Artist Of The year.

Curtis Salgado received a nod in the Soul Blues Male Artist Of The Year category.

The 39th Annual Blues Music Awards will be presented in Memphis on May 10, 2018 at the Cook Convention Center.
 
Alligator artists and nominations are as follows:

RICK ESTRIN:
Album Of The Year: Groovin' In Greaseland
Traditional Blues Album Of The Year: Groovin' In Greaseland
Band Of The Year: Rick Estrin & The Nightcats
B.B. King Entertainer Of The Year
Song Of The Year: The Blues Ain't Goin' Nowhere
Traditional Blues Male Artist Of The Year
Best Instrumentalist - Harmonica

Best Instrumentalist - Guitar: Kid Andersen

SELWYN BIRCHWOOD:
Contemporary Blues Album Of The Year: Pick Your Poison
Contemporary Blues Male Artist Of The Year

THE CASH BOX KINGS:
Band Of The Year
Traditional Blues Album Of The Year: Royal Mint

ELVIN BISHOP:
Traditional Blues Album Of The Year: Elvin Bishop's Big Fun Trio

SHEMEKIA COPELAND:
Contemporary Blues Female Artist Of The Year

THE NICK MOSS BAND:
Band Of The Year

Best Instrumentalist - Harmonica: Dennis Gruenling

TORONZO CANNON:
Contemporary Blues Male Artist Of The Year

CURTIS SALGADO:
Soul Blues Male Artist Of The Year
 

Selwyn Birchwood's Pick Your Poison #1 On Blues Rock Chart
Alligator Artists Hold Five Of The Top Ten Spots On Blues Chart

Recordings by Alligator Records artists dominated the 2017 Roots Music Report's two influential blues charts, which were announced on Tuesday, January 2. Selwyn Birchwood's Pick Your Poison sits atop the RMR's Blues Rock Chart. Alligator artists hold five of the top ten spots on the Blues Chart. All six of Alligator's 2017 releases made top 20 -- The Cash Box Kings' Royal Mint, #4; Coco Montoya's Hard Truth, #5; Elvin Bishop's Big Fun Trio, #6; Tommy Castro & The Painkillers' Stompin' Ground, #8; Selwyn Birchwood's Pick Your Poison, #9 and Rick Estrin & The Nightcats' Groovin' In Greaseland, #17.

Additionally, the January 2018 issue of MOJO magazine, the UK's premiere tastemaker music publication, selected their Top Blues Albums Of 2017. The Cash Box Kings' Royal Mint came in at #2 and Birchwood's Pick Your Poison at #8.

Alligator Records eagerly looks forward to topping more charts in 2018 with highly anticipated new releases from Tinsley Ellis, Curtis Salgado & Alan Hager, The Nick Moss Band Featuring Dennis Gruenling, Marcia Ball, Shemekia Copeland and others. Ellis' Winning Hand and Salgado & Hager's Rough Cut will both be released on Friday, January 12.

On Tuesday, November 28, 2017, The National Academy Of Recording Arts And Sciences (NARAS) announced a Grammy Award nomination for Rock And Roll Hall Of Famer and blues master Elvin Bishop. His latest album, Elvin Bishop's Big Fun Trio (with guitarist/pianist Bob Welsh and percussionist/vocalist Willy Jordan) received a nomination in the Best Traditional Blues Album category. The album is Elvin’s seventh release on Chicago-based Alligator Records.

Elvin Bishop’s Big Fun Trio features Bishop’s down-home delivery, deep blues picking and slide guitar playfully meshing with Welsh’s piano and guitar licks and Jordan’s soul singing and propulsive cajón playing. The album’s laid-back, front-porch vibe mixes four rollicking Bishop originals with three co-writes and five raucous, well-chosen covers of songs by Lightnin' Hopkins, Fats Domino, Sunnyland Slim, Ted Taylor and Bobby Womack. The Chicago Sun-Times said, “It’s impossible not to like Bishop. He’s always singing something lowbrow and uplifting.”

"In a trio, there's no place to hide," says Bishop. "You need to be totally into it all the time and you got to have the right guys. The combination of the three of us clicked big time. We went out and played a couple of gigs, and it was really cool to see how the people reacted to the goin’-for-it feel of the music. We decided we better make a CD. We enjoyed the hell out of playing this music."

Although Bishop has been performing his good-time brand of electrified, easy-rolling blues for over 50 years (his first professional gig was as guitarist for Junior Wells’ band in 1962), he is as vital and creative an artist today as he was when he first hit the national scene in 1965 with The Paul Butterfield Blues Band and was scoring massive rock ’n’ roll hits in the 1970s. His return to the blues on Alligator Records in the late 1980s ensure his place on the short list of bona fide blues guitar heroes. In 2015 he was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, and soon after into the Blues Hall Of Fame. This is Bishop's third Grammy Award nomination. He won the Living Blues Award for Best Blues Album Of 2014 and three 2014 Blues Music Awards.

On Friday, December 9, 2017, legendary pianist, songwriter and vocalist Marcia Ball will appear on A Jazz Piano Christmas from The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. The event, presented by NPR and The Kennedy Center, is an annual holiday tradition featuring four celebrated pianists performing their favorite seasonal music. The other artists on the program are Helen Sung, Joanne Brackeen and Abelita Mateus. The concert will be recorded for future NPR broadcast and streaming online.

According to Ball, "I am honored to be invited to participate in this year's NPR's A Jazz Piano Christmas program alongside three other amazing piano women."

Marcia Ball has earned worldwide fame for her ability to ignite a full-scale roadhouse rhythm and blues party every time she strolls onto a stage. The New York Times says, “Marcia Ball plays two-fisted New Orleans barrelhouse piano and sings in a husky, knowing voice about all the trouble men and women can get into on the way to a good time.” Ball's signature groove-laden New Orleans R&B, heart wrenching ballads and rollicking Gulf Coast blues have made her a one-of-a-kind favorite with music fans all over the world. Her songs paint vibrant pictures with richly detailed characters, flavors and scenes straight out of Louisiana and Texas.

Earlier this year, Ball, along with country music superstar George Strait, was named an official 2018 Texas State Musician by the Texas State Legislature. She holds ten Blues Music Awards, nine Living Blues Awards and five Grammy Award nominations. Born in Texas and raised in Louisiana (before settling in Austin in 1970), she has been inducted into both the Gulf Coast Music Hall Of Fame and the Louisiana Music Hall Of Fame. Her love of the road has led to countless performances at festivals, concert halls and clubs all over the world. Living Blues declares, “Her originals sound like timeless classics and southern soul masterpieces that no one else can imitate.”