Matlacha Mariners

GUITAR SHORTY ... Alligator recording artist and Legendary guitarist/vocalist Guitar Shorty is a giant in the blues world. Credited with influencing both Jimi Hendrix and Buddy Guy, Guitar Shorty has been electrifying audiences for five decades with his supercharged live shows and his incendiary recordings.

Like a bare knuckled boxer, Shorty strikes with his blistering, physical guitar playing and his fierce vocals, connecting directly with body and soul. What really sets Shorty apart is his absolutely unpredictable, off-the-wall guitar playing. He reaches for sounds, riffs and licks that other blues players wouldn’t even think of.

Through the years, Shorty has performed with blues and R&B luminaries like Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, B.B. King, Guitar Slim and T-Bone Walker. He started playing with these legends while still in his teens and recorded a handful of singles for a variety of labels and an obscure LP during the first 30 years of his career. After decades of paying his dues (like so many unheralded American bluesmen), it took a tour of England to establish Shorty’s fame in his home country. His recordings since then all received massive critical acclaim, and his renowned live performances have kept him constantly in demand all over the world. His 2004 Alligator Records debut, Watch Your Back, became his best-received, best-selling album to date. His 2006 follow-up, We The People, won the coveted Blues Music Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album Of The Year. Now, with his new CD, Bare Knuckle, Guitar Shorty unleashes a barrage of hard-hitting combinations of guitar, vocals and lyrics, hitting his listeners with some of the most awe-inspiring guitar and vocal work of his long career.

Produced by veteran Los Angeles-based songwriter and bassist Wyzard (an original member of Mother’s Finest, he has toured and recorded with Stevie Nicks and others), Bare Knuckle finds Guitar Shorty singing and playing with ferocious urgency and a fierce righteousness. Bare Knuckle’s blues burns with heavy rock and roll fire from start to finish, putting Shorty’s infectious energy and guitar pyrotechnics on full display. From the up-to-the-minute “Please Mr. President” to the celebratory “Texas Women” to the politically charged “Slow Burn,” Guitar Shorty has created an album that is as memorable for its menacing, slashing guitar work as it is for its defiant vocals and hard-rocking spirit.

Guitar Shorty was born David William Kearney on September 8, 1939 in Houston, Texas and raised in Kissimmee, Florida by his grandmother. He began playing guitar as a young boy, excited by the sounds of B.B. King, Guitar Slim, T-Bone Walker and John Lee Hooker. His first lessons came from his uncle, but when it became clear that the youngster was serious about his music, his grandmother hired a teacher for him. “I learned so fast I was always two or three pages ahead of my teacher,” Shorty recalls. After a move to Tampa when he was 17, the young Kearney won a slot as a featured guitarist and vocalist in the locally popular 18-piece orchestra led by Walter Johnson. Being younger—and shorter—than the rest of the band, a club owner bestowed the name Guitar Shorty on him, and it stuck. After a particularly strong performance by Shorty in Florida, the great Willie Dixon, who was in the audience, approached Shorty and said, “I like what you’re doing. You’ve got something different. I gotta get you in the studio.” A few weeks later Shorty was in Chicago and, backed by Otis Rush on second guitar, he cut his first single, “Irma Lee” b/w “You Don’t Treat Me Right,” for Chicago’s famed Cobra Records (the first label home for Rush, Magic Sam and Buddy Guy) in 1957. “Willie Dixon was a huge influence on me and my singing,” Shorty remembers. “Willie helped me find my own singing voice and showed me how to tell a story with my words.”

Shorty’s fortunes continued to rise when the great Ray Charles hired the young guitar slinger as a featured member of his road band. While touring Florida with Ray, Shorty connected with one of his idols—guitarist/vocalist Guitar Slim, famous for his hit “Things That I Used To Do” as well as for his wildman stage antics. Slim’s manager offered Shorty the opening slot on the guitarist’s upcoming tour, and Shorty jumped at the chance, following his hero to New Orleans. Inspired by Slim, Shorty began incorporating some of the older artist’s athletic showmanship into his own performances. Before long, he was doing somersaults and flips on stage. With his blistering talent and his wild stage shows, Guitar Shorty found his audience growing even larger. In New Orleans, he joined Sam Cooke’s touring band and eventually ended up in Los Angeles. He gigged locally before recording three 45s for the Los Angeles-based Pull Records label in 1959. Those six sides—all Guitar Shorty originals—showed Shorty beginning to find his own trademark sound and style.

Shorty moved to Seattle in 1960 and through his friend, Marsha Hendrix, met her stepbrother Jimi. Jimi Hendrix loved Shorty’s playing, and confessed that in 1961 and 1962 he would go AWOL from his Army base in order to catch Shorty’s area performances, picking up licks and ideas. “I’d see Jimi at the clubs,” Shorty recalls. “He’d stay in the shadows, watching me. I hear my licks in “Purple Haze” and “Hey Joe.” He told me the reason he started setting his guitar on fire was because he couldn’t do the back flips like I did.”

Guitar Shorty moved back to Los Angeles in 1971, gigging around Southern California for many years, sometimes playing bigger shows farther away. He opened for all the great blues stars who passed through town, including Little Milton, B.B. King, Lowell Fulson, Johnny Copeland and T-Bone Walker. In 1978 he even performed on (and won) The Gong Show, playing guitar while standing on his head. After overcoming a serious auto accident in 1984, he recorded an EP for Los Angeles-based Big J Records. After that, he cut a few more singles and his debut LP for tiny Olive Branch Records in 1985, showcasing his fiery guitar licks and deep blues vocals. The strength of these recordings kept him busy on the club scene. He even appeared, playing himself, in the 1990 Tommy Chong film “Far Out Man.” A major story in Living Blues magazine brought him even more attention and led to his first British tour. While in England, he cut an album for the JSP label. Released in 1991, My Way Or The Highway created a sensation among U.S. blues fans and received the Blues Music Award for Contemporary Foreign Blues Album Of The Year. It completely revitalized Shorty’s career in the U.S.

With all the attention Shorty received, the New Orleans-based Black Top label signed him and released three albums (Topsy Turvy, Get Wise To Yourself and Roll Over, Baby) during the 1990s. In 2001 he recorded I Go Wild for Evidence Records, produced by Brian Brinkerhoff. All received an abundance of positive press as Shorty barnstormed his way across the U.S. and around the world, with stops in Europe and Japan. DownBeat raved, “Guitar Shorty’s music is a funky, boisterous buffet of off-the-wall blues fun.” Appearances at major festivals like The Monterey Bay Blues Festival, The San Francisco Blues Festival and The King Biscuit Blues Festival brought him to larger and larger audiences. At the 1998 Chicago Blues Festival, Shorty opened for his old boss Ray Charles and thrilled an audience of thousands with his jaw-dropping stage show.

In 2004 Brinkerhoff and Jesse Harms brought a newly-recorded Guitar Shorty album to Alligator Records. Alligator released Watch Your Back, and Shorty’s long rise to blues stardom grew exponentially. The outpouring of soulful emotion, the power of his playing and the strength of the material added up to the toughest album of Shorty’s renowned career. Living Blues called Shorty “a blues rock original [who plays] screaming, empowered guitar and sings with streetwise defiance.”

2006’s We The People found Shorty delivering some of the most fire-coated fretwork of his career and the most thought-provoking songs he’s ever recorded. Critics and fans rallied, declaring their love for one of the blues’ greatest practitioners. Billboard declared, “Bluesman Guitar Shorty has been cutting sides since 1957, yet it’s difficult to imagine that he ever tracked a better album than We The People.”

In a major feature in Texas Music Magazine, writer John Morthland summed things up perfectly, saying, “Axebuster extraordinaire Guitar Shorty is an old-school guitar showman. He plays with technique and flash, without ever sacrificing the passion. He’s a blues-rock hero.” GuitarOne declared, “Be prepared for a mighty surprise if you are tired of the same old blues and have never heard Guitar Shorty rip. With his harmonically saturated tone, soaring sustain, lethal licks and heavyweight blues-rock grooves, Shorty is not to be overlooked.” Now, with Bare Knuckle and his one-two punch of blistering guitar work and passionate vocals, his combination of lyrically deep songs and one-of-a-kind live shows, Guitar Shorty proves again that he is one of today’s true, undisputed heavyweight champions of the blues.

"Defiant, electric blues with piercing intensity and raw venom that’ll leave your ears singed" --Chicago Tribune.

2006 Blues Music Award Winner for contemporary Blues Album of the Year, "We The People." Guitar Shorty was also nominated for, contemporary Blues Male Artist of the Year, Instrumentalist of the Year – Guitar .

Amazon.com says his guitar work ,“sounds like a caged tiger before feeding time. His molten guitar pours his psychedelicized solos like lava over anything in his path.”

The Chicago Reader declares, “Guitar Shorty is a battle-scarred hard-ass. He slices off his phrases and notes with homicidal fury. He is among the highest-energy blues entertainers on the scene.”

Billboard magazine said, “his galvanizing guitar work defines modern, top-of-the-line blues-rock. His vocals remain as forceful as ever. Righteous shuffles...blistering, sinuous guitar solos.

Living Blues Radio Chart For March 2010 - # 2. Guitar Shorty, Bare Knuckle, Alligator

BETH MCKEE ... Imagine the female love child of Dusty Springfield and Doug Sahm with Dr. John acting as the midwife……and you’ll have an idea of the southern roots music with elements of rock, blues, soul, gospel and country that defines artist Beth McKee.

McKee is a Southern singer/songwriter/pianist/accordion player backed by seasoned musicians from outfits like Hall & Oates, Bellamy Brothers, George Porter, Lester Chambers, etc. A former member of the popular New Orleans country-cajun group Evangeline (MCA Records) McKee toured extensively behind two critically acclaimed albums. L.A. Weekly raved Beth’s piano is “worthy of some Jerry Lee Lewis arson.”

Long before her career took off nationally, the Mississippi native played piano in church. She solidified her southern at Ole Miss. She played blues on the chitlin’ circuit from steamy juke joints to muddy hog farms, and emerged as a respected player on the New Orleans, Austin and Nashville music scenes.

In 2010, the self-released I’m That Way displays all those southern roots fusing to formulate her swampy and soulful musical identity.

Being swampy and soulful, it’s no surprise her first solo release is devoted to the songs of the late Louisiana legend Bobby Charles. As a member of the historic Chess Records roster in the 1950s, Charles wrote and recorded hits like “See You Later Alligator,” “But I Do” and “Walking to New Orleans.” McKee interprets these and Charles’ lesser known gems on I’m That Way.

In the last year of his life Bobby Charles said Beth McKee is “one talented lady with a great band” and characterized her voice as “easy on my mind.” McKee’s foray into the inimitable material of this bayou balladeer turns from an intimidating exercise to a license to be righteous as she gigs in support of the record.

In a letter from Mr. Charles shortly before his passing he thanks McKee for “making me feel so proud… doing my songs on your new CD.” He liked Beth’s musicianship and vocals so much he included her on his final album Timeless which was released in February, 2010.

“Louisiana IS Americana,” McKee says, “and when Bobby bared his soul in his work, it was as if he were baring the soul of Louisiana. Straightforward; passionate, fun-loving. When I sing his songs, I just have to lay it all out there, because Bobby was sincere to the core.”

Louisiana’s arts weekly Offbeat Magazine agreed by writing; “And it’s the absolute right approach for material from the Bard of the Bayous, Guru of the Gulf, Sage of the Swamps.”

Currently a central Florida resident, McKee is still a mainstay on the New Orleans, Austin and Jackson, MS music scenes including a side project with Tommy Malone of the subdudes. She has performed with such legends as Buckwheat Zydeco, the subdudes, Marcia Ball, Jimmy Buffett, the Zion Harmonizers and many more. She’s performed from coast to coast, including concerts at the Hollywood Bowl, Antone’s, Tipitina’s and the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.

McKee is backed by her husband and co-producer Juan Perez, an acclaimed drummer and percussionist in his own right (he was drummer on The Bellamy Brothers’ many #1 Country hits). Beth plays accordion, and most evidently, is a remarkable piano talent. The Orlando Sentinel’s Jim Abbott, who compares Beth’s vocals to Bonnie Raitt and Lucinda Williams, notes: “On piano, her driving left hand recalls Professor Longhair.” When reviewed in concert, the Nashville Scene raved “The show was stolen however by…Mississippi native Beth McKee” The review “put her in a class with a young Bonnie Raitt.”

Once a budding southern belle. Then a top country-cajun MCA recording artist. Recently an interpreter of Louisiana classics. In 2011 Beth McKee will release a CD with original songs of journeys, love, loss, hope and being on the verge…all wrapped in McKee’s sassy southern styles.

In the meantime she continues to collaborate with the subdudes’ Tommy Malone and Americana artist/producer Colin Linden. McKee is completing a collaborative song and short story collection about lost souls in southern Alabama, and of course she keeps her toes wet in the Nashville/New Orleans/Austin music scenes.

“Honky Tonk piano worthy of some Jerry Lee Lewis arson.” – L.A. Weekly (live review)

“The show is stolen however, by Beth McKee, in a class with a young Bonnie Raitt.”
- Nashville Scene (live review)

“McKee’s vibrant vocals do Charles proud… McKee pulls it off magnificently…spine tingling.”
– John Conquest, Third Coast Music

“The only sub that matters here is the underlying growl that marks these performances—blasting saxes, slashing and sliding guitars, burbling organ and piano (McKee leading the way on the latter) and earthy beats (from hubby/co-producer Juan Perez) all keyed to McKee’s naturally lusty vocals.” – Steve Hochman, Offbeat

“McKee’s voice is an amazing thing. She sounds like the woman of your dreams, a lady who has lived life from a lot of angles and kept a purity of feeling that comes across in everything she does.”
- Bill Bentley, SonicBoomers.com

NICK MOSS ... There's a 'Renaissance Man' revival in the music industry these days, and Nick Moss has taken advantage of it. Unprecedented upheaval in the entertainment field has thrown open the doors of opportunity for artists with vision and courage to take advantage of it. The release of Nick's eighth album, Privileged, is proof he has both.

After seven critically-acclaimed traditional blues albums, Nick has widened his focus on Privileged in order to absorb song forms and influences beyond the scope of those heard on his previous albums. Not every artist is willing to challenge themselves to grow, explore, and expand. For Nick, that has become second nature.

Most artists spend years honing their skills in order to shop themselves around to different labels, hoping someone will believe enough in their potential to take a chance on them. Nick didn't waste time waiting for someone else to believe in him. He had the passion, confidence, and drive to start his own label, Blue Bella Records, in order to pursue his dream and artistic vision.

Before Nick forged his own direction, he spent time learning about the life of a musician by playing with some of the greatest bluesmen of all time.

Nick's schooling began in earnest when he got the call to play bass with the great Chicago guitarist Jimmy Dawkins. Shortly thereafter, he hooked up with the Legendary Blues Band, featuring Muddy Waters Blues Band alumnus Willie "Big Eyes" Smith on drums. "That was one of my favorite bands," he recalls. "I still love Willie. He is like my second father." The next deep-blues learning period for Nick, who'd switched over from bass to a six-string, was in the band of Jimmy Rogers for three years in the mid-'90s. From Rogers, he learned all about the special ensemble sound of authentic Chicago blues, coming to understand the importance of listening closely to and reacting to his fellow players on the bandstand. "Listen to early Muddy Waters stuff with Jimmy and Otis Spann and Little Walter," says Nick of the original model. "It almost sounds as if they're playing on top of each other, but they're staying out of each other's way. It almost sounds like they're all soloing at the same time."

With his blues graduate studies completed by the late '90s, Moss launched his band, The Flip Tops and Blue Bella Records. Their first album, First Offense, was followed by Got a New Plan in 2001 and two years later a third album, Count Your Blessings. The latter two received W. C. Handy award nominations, and Count Your Blessings included ace contributions by Nick's friends Sam Myers, Anson Funderburgh, Willie Smith, Curtis Salgado and Lynwood Slim. June 2005 saw the release of fourth album Sadie Mae, named after his beautiful baby daughter. Sadie Mae was nominated for 2006 Blues Music Awards as Album of the Year and Traditional Blues Album of the Year.

Those first four studio albums and relentless touring helped Moss build a devoted audience. That following was so excited about the music they were hearing in clubs across the country night after night that they not only encouraged Nick to release a live album, they helped make arrangements for it. Live at Chan's, released in 2006, was nominated for Album of The Year, Traditional Blues Album of the Year, and saw Moss nominated as Guitarist of the Year at the 2007 BMAs. What made the album so successful? Nick made certain the night they rolled tape was just like any other night when he and his band took the stage. "I wanted to make sure that the CD reflected the spontaneity of our live performances. I've been blessed with an extremely talented band; each one of us is a multi-instrumentalist and has no problem switching it up during our shows! We have had nothing but compliments from our audiences after they see how the guys and I take turns on different instruments as we did on this particular night."

Moss followed his first live release up with a double album Play It 'Til Tomorrow. By expanding with a second disc, the band was able to present another serving of live, loud, and raucous electric blues as well as showcase their ability to strip their sound down to the bare, acoustic essentials. Play It Til Tomorrow once again featured Oshawny on keyboards (he switched over to bass on four tracks and second guitar on another) and Hundt on harp and vocals (he also played bass, rhythm guitar and mandolin on the disc). Special guests Eddie Taylor, Jr. and Barrelhouse Chuck made their presence felt too. This impressive double release went on to be named among the "Decade's Best Blues: 25 Great Albums That Defined the Past 10 Years" in Blues Revue Magazine in 2010.

The acclaim Live at Chan's garnered convinced everyone that a sequel was definitely in order—and the sooner, the better. Thus we have Nick and the band's new CD: Live At Chan's: Combo Platter No. 2, with special guest Lurrie Bell. The set once again captures what this uncommonly hard-hitting, endlessly versatile crew does best: live and lively Chicago blues, deeply rooted in postwar tradition with a heady infusion of contemporary energy.

No matter how far he travels, though, geographically or stylistically, the pull of Chicago and his roots there are never far from his mind. It's where he started out on his musical journey; each new approach merely marks a stop along the way.

"If you're uneasy about the future of the blues, you'll find hope in Nick Moss. He maintains the finest in Chicago's straightforward, gutbucket sound while eschewing the all-too-common use of 'special guests' and cliched covers. A contemporary, personal take on a classic sound. Hot Lick: Check out the single-note work on 'I Never Forget'." - Guitar One Magazine

"They're a multi-talented quartet and they blaze through these 11 workouts with dogged intensity ... After four acclaimed studio albums, Live at Chan's is the triumphant clamor of the Flip Tops landing on their first pinnacle" - Hitting The Note

"Among the top-rank Chicago blues guitarists of the 1950s and '60s, Jimmy Rogers stood out as the cleanest and classiest player. It comes as no surprise, then, that Nick Moss is upholding those high standards with his own playing." - Chicago Sun Times

"... his approach to this music makes him arguably the most exciting young blues player on the scene today ... It's a combination of talents that allows the best bands to transcend their genres, and that's they key to Nick Moss & the Flip Tops' appeal. They play with fire and fury but also with control, constructing a brilliant set that never gets boring." - Blues Revue Magazine

Nick Moss feature story in Blues Revue! April/May 2010
Southland Blues Magazine September 2010 ,"Privileged & On Tour" cover.

DEB and THE DYNAMICS ... Still the premier band to see in the area, Deb & The Dynamics continue to bring their frenetic live shows to music lovers all over Southwest Florida. The band is currently planning a new live CD and may use some of their performance from the festival for the project. As always you can expect to hear plenty of blues and soul combined with a level energy that needs to be witnessed to be believed. Deb & The Dynamics continue to live up to their title of the hardest working band in the Southwest Florida.

The band is rounded out by long time band members Rick Russell on keyboards, harp, & vocals. Newt Cole on tenor & alto saxophones, and Don Hulgas on the baritone and tenor saxophones. Together these three love to mix with the audience often performing their solos out in the crowd. The band is anchored now with the addition of stage, studio, and touring veterans Dan Keady on guitar, and Steve Gomes of drums.

As always the namesake of the band Deb Salyer leads the band with the skill and passion accumulated from a life time in the music business. People know they are seeing and hearing the “real thing” when the “little lady with the great big voice” gets a hold of a song. Many observers, especially other musicians are in awe of her tremendous vocal ability only to realize she is tearing it up on the bass too. Whether it be Big Mama Thornton, Etta James, Aretha Franklin, or her own songs Salyer serves up a dizzying array of blues, soul, R&B, rock & funk that always keeps the audiences moving.

With Salyer at the helm the band shares a commitment to the crowds who have continued to follow them for the last five years and that is the commitment to deliver a tireless evening of goodtime music to help their friends and fans forget about their everyday hardships by immersing them in the celebration of song and dance. Deb & The Dynamics have consistently delivered high energy shows to enthusiastic audiences wherever they play. In a recent interview with the Fort Myers News Press keyboardist Russell described a Deb & The Dynamics show as “a revival without the religion”.

HONEY ISLAND SWAMP BAND ... Great music begins with great songs, and great songs are what the Honey Island Swamp Band is all about.

The band came together after Aaron Wilkinson (acoustic guitar, mandolin, vocals) and Chris Mule' (electric guitar, vocals) were marooned in San Francisco after the levee breaches following Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, and had a chance encounter with fellow New Orleans evacuees Sam Price (bass, vocals) and Garland Paul (drums, vocals) at the John Lee Hooker's Boom Boom Room on Fillmore Street.

They knew each other from having all played together in some form or another in various New Orleans bands, and with the great unknown regarding their return to their underwater hometown looming in the distance, they decided to put together a band and get some gigs going. Fortunately, the Boom Boom Room's owner Alex Andreas offered the band a weekly gig on the spot.

Sunday nights at the Boom Boom Room soon became a favorite of Bay Area roots music lovers, who have a long-standing affinity for New Orleans music and musicians. Two months into the residency, sound engineer Robert Gatley approached the band with a rare opportunity — he wanted to record a Honey Island Swamp Band album at the legendary Record Plant studios in Sausalito, where he worked. The recording came together beautifully, with Wilkinson and Mulé both contributing favorite originals, and was received so well that they all decided to continue the band upon moving back to New Orleans in early 2007.

Honey Island Swamp Band's sound has been described as "Americana on the Bayou", with timeless songs from Wilkinson & Mulé, highlighted by Mulé's searing guitar, Wilkinson's sure-handed mandolin, and 4-part vocal harmonies, all anchored by the powerful groove of Price & Paul's Louisiana stomp rhythm section. Their music draws from a variety of influences in the world of roots music, including artists such as Lowell George & Little Feat, Jimmy Reed, Taj Mahal, Jerry Garcia, Gram Parsons, Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, and New Orleans' own "Night Tripper", the legendary Dr. John.

In April 2009, HISB released its first full-length album – Wishing Well – produced by Tom Drummond of Better Than Ezra. Throughout the rest of 2009, the band toured relentlessly in support of Wishing Well, on the strength of such songs as "Natural Born Fool", "Till the Money's Gone", and the album's title track. In January 2010, Wishing Well was named 2009's "Best Blues Album" at OffBeat Magazine's BEST OF THE BEAT Awards, where the band was also honored as "Best Emerging Artist".

The newest offering from the band – Good To You – was released in April 2010, and has quickly become a staple of most DJs on the Crescent City's legendary radio station WWOZ, as well as on Sirius/XM satellite radio's Bluesville and traditional stations from coast-to-coast. Featuring the southern strut of songs such as "Rod n Reel", "300 Pounds" and the album's first single "Chocolate Cake", Good To You illuminates the mix of country-inflected rock and New Orleans funky blues that makes Honey Island Swamp Band's music so familiar and unique at the same time.

On January 23, 2009 HISB was honored with two awards at this year’s BEST OF THE BEAT Awards, hosted by OffBeat Magazine, the purveyors of all things Music in New Orleans and throughout the great state of Louisiana. The band was voted Best Emerging Artist for 2009, while Wishing Well was named 2009’s Best Blues Album.

Honey Island Swamp Band - The Back Room Blues Bar - Broward/Palm Beach - Events
"Somewhere, there exists a dark, smoky bar with a jukebox that spins George Jones, Gram Parsons, Delbert McClinton, and Little Feat. And if that fantasy honky-tonk lights your Marlboro, you need to know about Honey Island Swamp Band." - By Bob Weinberg Broward Palm Beach New Times.

FYI Notes: For most of the past decade, Aaron Wilkinson and Chris Mule established themselves as top-notch musicians and songwriters, most notably as members of the Eric Lindell band. The two were major contributors as both players and writers for Lindell's 2006 Alligator Records debut Change in the Weather and his follow up, 2008's Low on Cash, Rich in Love. "Lay Back Down," a Lindell/Wilkinson composition and the first single from Low on Cash, debuted at number 13 on the AAA radio charts and was featured in the band's live performance on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien." Wilkinson's "Josephine" received major airplay as the album's second single, while collaborations between all three musicians have been favorites of DJs in major US markets, internationally and on both Sirius and XM satellite stations over the past year.

DANNY SHEPARD and BLUE MERCURY... "burning blues/rock guitar and an earthy voice... "

Danny has shared stages with many great performers, but among the better known are The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Tower of Power, Loverboy, Elliott Randall, Little Feat, Cliff Williams, Brian Johnson of AC/DC and Jason Bonham.

In addition to performing at music festivals in the US, in 2007, Danny performed as a member of Emir & Frozen Camels in Austria at the 3-day MTV festival outside Salzburg. Headliners on that bill included Nine Inch Nails, Fallout Boy, and Snow Patrol. He was included as a featured performer at the 10-day Friendship Festival in Gorazde, Bosnia and the 2007 tour culminated with a featured headline performance in Serbia at the 4-day Belgrade Beerfest for an estimated 100,000 music fans.

Danny is a founding member and co-producer with Emir and Frozen Camels, who have had 3 top ten CDs and 5 tours in Europe.

In 2006, Danny headlined the Mostar Blues Festival at the Luciano Pavarrotti Music Centre, with Darrell Nutt, Emir Bukovica and Michael Rogers in Mostar, Bosnia.

In 2004 and 2005, Danny was chosen to perform Angus Young’s lead guitar parts with Cliff Williams and Brian Johnson of AC/DC, at the 96K-Rock Hurricane benefits in Florida.

Currently... Danny performs at Festivals, Concerts and Select Venues in the USA.

"One of the best guitarists on the planet!" — Albert Castiglia

"One of the best guitar players in America." — Roger Di Ciccio, NYC, Red Rock Saloon

Advance Ticketing is Over Now - Tickets are Only Available at the Gate..

Adult Tickets are a $15.00 donation in Advance (OR) $20.00 at the Gate - Kids 11 and Under are Free with a Paid Adult.
All Advance Ticketing will end at 5:00 PM Friday Evening 11/19/2010 - After that Tickets will Only be Available at The Gate...

~~For Ticket Outlet Locations Click Here !~~

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Gates Open at 11:30 AM Stage Times for Scheduled Acts Shown Below Opening to Closing
Special Guests Megan Coite & Wade Thomas The Cape High School "ROTC Color Guard"	12:00 Noon -12:15 PM
Danny Shepard and Blue Mercury	12:30 PM - 1:30 PM
Honey Island Swamp Band	1:45 PM - 3:00 PM
Deb and The Dynamics	3:15 PM - 4:30 PM
Nick Moss & Fliptops	4:45 PM - 6:00 PM
Beth McKee	6:15 PM - 7:30 PM
Guitar Shorty	7:45 PM - 9:00 PM
NOTE: Artists or stage times are subject to change without further notice.

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Blues Festival Contacts

Festival & Music Coordinator:
Jerry Tolliver
239-464-0809
marinersjtolliver@gmail.com

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Jerry Tolliver
239-464-0809
marinersjtolliver@gmail.com

Vendor Coordinator:
Ross Stornello
239-282-1442
rstornello@embarqmail.com

Volunteer Coordinator:
Wayne Redd

email your Blues Festival Questions to: MarinerEventQuestions@gmail.com