Jenny Kerr is a San Francisco native who as a kid used to take the bus to the Haight to see blues and folk concerts in the sixties. Watching Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, and Muddy Waters led her to an older roster of musicians like Mississippi Fred McDowell, Little Walter and Dock Boggs. She cast off her classical music training and started playing guitar, harmonica and banjo. She’s also a poetic songwriter and powerful singer whose music embraces swamp rock, straight-up soul, backwater honky tonk, and old-time blues and finely-hewn ballads.

Beth Kohnen first heard the blues played live when she started sneaking into clubs in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She studied music in college while playing harmonica with a jug band for fun. Years later, after discovering the music of Big Walter Horton, she rededicated herself to the blues harp, studying with Steve Freund, the last guitarist to play with Big Walter. She plays all over the Bay Area both solo and with the Red Quilt Trio, and has released three albums. Her heartfelt playing is both true to the original Chicago blues sound but with a style distinctly her own.

Stu Kinzel & LynnAnn Hyde are, “Guardians of traditional blues and roots.” The duo, featuring LynnAnn on blues harp, explores the vast range of Delta Blues, Cajun, Gulf Coast, classic country, jazz, folk, roots and swing. They’ve appeared on more than a dozen blues compliations, XM radio’s “Bluesville,” and NPR’s “Blues on Stage,” and featured in the documentary Portland Mojo: How Stumptown Got the Blues.

Listen to a track from Beth Kohnen:

visit the Jenny Kerr website

visit the Beth Kohnen website

visit the LynnAnn Hyde website