Santa Clarita, CA (Top40 Charts/ RoadRunner Records) - Congratulations to Loud & Proud artists The Steve Miller Band and The
Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band, who recently received 2011 Blues
Music Awards nominations for Rock Blues Album of the Year for Bingo! and LIVE! In Chicago, respectively. The annual Blues
Music Awards, universally recognized as the highest honor given to Blues artists, will take place at the Cook Convention Center in Memphis, TN on May 5th, 2011.
This is Steve Miller's first Blues Music Award nomination. In June 2010, Miller released the critically acclaimed album Bingo! The album serves as Miller's musical autobiography, reaching back into his own apprenticeship as a young man in the Chicago blues scene. There he metHowlin' Wolf playing in nightclubs and shared a bandstand with Muddy Waters. Millertransformed the classic rhythm and blues songs into monumental rock performances. Rolling Stone described Bingo! as "a return to Miller's blues roots with the slick party pop vibe of his classics 'The Joker' and 'Fly Like an Eagle'" and Guitar Player magazine said "the Space Cowboy has cut his best guitar album EVER!"
This is Kenny Wayne Shepherd's second Blues Music Award nomination. In 2008, Kenny Wayne Shepherd received the Blues Music Award for Best DVD (10 Days Out: Blues from the Backroads) as well as the Blues Foundation's prestigious "Keeping the Blues Alive" award.
LIVE! In Chicago is Kenny Wayne Shepherd's 5th straight No 1 Blues album, an achievement matched solely by fellow guitar man Eric Clapton. Those five albums have spent a total of 93 weeks at No 1, tying with none other than B.B. King for the most weeks spent atop the Blues chart. Recorded in Chicago's House of Blues during the critically acclaimed 10 Days Out: Blues From The Backroads tour, LIVE! In Chicago showcases Kenny and his band, Noah Hunt, Chris Layton, Scott Nelson and Riley Osbourn, along with special guests, Hubert Sumlin, Willie "Big Eyes" Smith, Buddy Flett, Bryan Lee and Tommy Shannon (of Double Trouble). LIVE! In Chicago went on to spend 4 weeks at No 1 on the Blues chart.
The news of The Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band's BMA nomination comes just weeks afterLIVE! In Chicago received a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Blues Album.
