Saturday June 8, 2019 at the Chicago Blues Festival blues legend Lurrie Bell performs on the Front Porch Stage in Millennium Park.
About Lurrie Bell
Lurrie Bell split his early years between his grandparents in Mississippi and his family in Chicago, where, as the son of blues harmonica great Carey Bell, he was often in the presence of many of the luminaries of the Chicago blues scene passing through his house. He picked up guitar quickly and by the age of 19 was a founding member of Sons of Blues with Billy Branch and Freddie Dixon (Willie’s son), recording and touring with them as well as with singer Koko Taylor as her guitarist. Recordings he made with his father and other artists were well received, but he was personally struggling. With assistance, he pulled out and ultimately triumphed with a string of four excellent recordings for Delmark, a 2004 duet with his father on the Alligator label, and a self-produced CD Let’s Talk About Love, which critics raved about. In 2009 he appeared on both volumes of Chicago Blues: A Living History, earning a Grammy© Award nomination. He started his own Aria BG label in 2012 and released The Devil Ain’t Got No Music, a sensitive and celebrated revisiting of the acoustic blues and gospel music of his youth, and he was honored with the Prix du Blues award from the prestigious French L’Academie du Jazz for the Best Blues Recording of 2012. He re-signed with Delmark for the 2013 Blues in My Soul, a return to straight-ahead Chicago blues; the title track, which he wrote, won a Blues Music Award for Song Of The Year.
In 2015 he won the Blues Foundation’s award for Best Traditional Male Blues Artist. Can’t Shake This Feeling, recorded for Delmark in 2016, was nominated for a Grammy© Award and earned another Blues Music Award for Traditional Recording Of The Year.. And last year, Lurrie returned to Delmark—with his brothers Steve, James and Tyson—to record Lurrie Bell and the Bell Dynasty: A Tribute to Carey Bell. Lurrie Bell is a jubilant and grateful survivor and a true Chicago treasure—not to mention one incredible guitar player.
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