"Mark Hummel came of age in the early seventies, at the height or rock and roll, but instead of picking up a guitar . . . he went out and bought a harmonica, and he hasn't stopped playing since. A specialist in the West Coast blues, he's a seasoned showman who knows more than a thing or two about how to please an audience." - The New Yorker

Harmonica virtuoso and blues shouter Mark Hummel is back for another night of raise-the-roof blues with guitar phenom Nathan James, bassist RW Grigsby, and Marty Dodson on drums. A longtime Bay area resident, Mark is one of the key practitioners of the West Coast blues sound, which fuses jump blues and rock n' roll, a sound he honed playing internationally with such blues greats as Charlie Musselwhite, Brownie McGhee, Lowell Fulson, and Eddie Taylor. Raised in Los Angeles, Mark absorbed the music of such Chicago-based harp blowers as Little Walter, James Cotton, and Sonny Boy Williamson before settling in Berkeley. The following decades Mark took the helm of the band the Blues Survivors, toured with the Canadian singer and guitarist Sue Foley, and since 1991, produced and performed at his Blues Harmonica Blowout event, which has featured folks like James Cotton, John Mayall, John Hammond, and Norton Buffalo.

Never one to follow convention, and always one to think for himself, Nathan James has created a musical identity with his homemade instruments and self taught skills. Whether you catch Nathan as his true one man band pickin' and scratchin' on his own invention of washboard guitar or stomping out time on his custom suitcase drum set while singing and blowing harmonica or kazoo, you are sure to be moved and impressed by his edgy energy and blues-to-the bone soul. He also happens to be very good. "Nobody else these days plays so many styles so well, be it old time country blues, low down Memphis or Chicago blues, or even uptown string bending blues." -Rick Holmstrom

Visit Mark's website

Visit Nathan's website

Listen to a track from Mark Hummel: