3rd Annual Houston Bluesfest at East River 9 is November 8th!

Winner of this years 2017 Blues Music Award for New Artist Debut, Jonn Del Toro Richardson got his start at an early age, having grown up in a musical family. His grandmother and her siblings played in a touring mariachi band playing regionally through the Southeast and Southwest. After watching his uncles play at family gatherings, he picked up a guitar in his early 20s. On a diet of Country, Motown, R&B, Classic rock and various other genres, Jonn continued learning his chosen instrument and he worked in various bands playing all types of music.

Once he heard the blues, he knew he had found his place. Richardson’s partnership with Diunna Greenleaf and his role in the Blue Mercy Blues Band and the support of the Blue Shoe Project in Dallas TX led them to the International Blues Challenge in Memphis TN in 2005.  That same competition Richardson was honored with the Albert King Award, the most promising blue guitarist of the competition.
 

In 2007 Jonn played on the Grammy winning album The Last of the Mississippi Delta Blues Men.  He continues Perkins’ legacy by working with the Pinetop Perkins Foundation. You can hear his influences on his various recordings and live. Richardson has had the pleasure to work with players such as Diunna Greenleaf, Otis Taylor, Bob Margolin, Hubert Sumlin, James Cotton, Bob Stroger, Willie “Big Eyes” Smith, Anson Funderburgh, Ronnie Earl, Rich Del Grosso,  and many, many more. - Bluespros

The blues rock-loving sexy sax player vocalist that delivers both ambiance and a message from stages around the world. From the moment this lady takes the stage to the very moment she leaves there is both a room full of anticipation and then fulfillment in the air. Audiences love Evelyn. In a recent press, radio, and venue tour in Europe Evelyn had the distinct pleasure to perform with The Black City Band in multiple cities. On every stage along the way the audiences were shouting bravo and encore, women were dancing at their tables, it was pure joy night after night. 

The depths of the Texas blues tradition with the wit of a poet. She hits the stage with an unmatched presence, a true legend in her time.

She’d grown up the child of a singer in a band and began playing her mother’s vintage Martin guitar when other girls were dressing dolls. She’d gone from being the teenage toast of her hometown Houston to sleeping in her van in Austin amid heaps of critical acclaim for excellent recordings.

Along with the guitar and the multitude of other instruments she learned to play – trumpet, accordion, piano, mandolin, lap steel – Wonderland’s ability to whistle remains most unusual. Whistling is a uniquely vocal art seldom invoked in modern music, yet it’s among the most spectacular talents the human voice possesses.

That vocal proficiency was well-established in the singer’s midteens, landing her gigs at Fitzgerald’s by age 15. She absorbed Houston influences like Little Screamin’ Kenny, Albert Collins, Lavelle White, Jerry Lightfoot, Joe “Guitar” Hughes, Little Joe Washington, “borrowed” a car to sneak out and jam ended up swapping songs with Townes Van Zandt at Houston’s Local’s on White Oak, got involved in the underground theater scene becoming the first “Photochick” in Jason Nodler’s “In the Under Thunderloo” and soaked up touring bands like the Paladins, Los Lobos, and the Mad Hatter of Texas music, Doug Sahm. Her music played in television series such as “Time of Your Life” and NBC’s “Homicide.” The Lone Star State was as credible a proving ground for blues in the 1980s and 90s as existed, especially in Austin with Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble, the Fabulous Thunderbirds, Angela Strehli, Omar & the Howlers, and Lou Ann Barton all in their prime. By the following decade, Austin’s blues luster thinned, but Houston, always a bastion of soul and R&B, boasted the Imperial Monkeys with the effervescent Carolyn Wonderland as ruler of the jungle.

In the early 1990s, Wonderland & the Imperial Monkeys were invited to the Guadalupe Street Antone’s in Austin. There, they were treated like royalty with the singer as the queen of hearts in the club’s post-Stevie Ray Vaughan stable, which included Toni Price, Johnny and Jay Moeller, Sue Foley, Mike and Corey Keller, and the Ugly Americans. It was a good bar for the Monkeys to hang, and Austin felt so comfortable that when the band called it quits a few years later, after a run-in with black ice and a semi that wound young Miss Wonderland in the hospital, she set her sights on Austin at the start of the millennium. Besides, Doug Sahm had told Carolyn while they were signing autographs together at the High Sierra Music Festival, she ought to move to Austin, as it was the land of free guitar lessons. She was there in months.

Living in Austin renewed Carolyn Wonderland’s focus on her multiple talents, underlining rich vocals with excellent guitar work, trumpet, and piano, as well as that remarkable ability to whistle on key. Despite spending two years homeless (or as she puts it, “van-full,”) Austin has been fertile ground for Carolyn. A series of each-better-than-the-next discs began with Alcohol & Salvation in 2001 (“songs about booze and God; records are a time capsule of what happened that year”) 2003’s “Bloodless Revolution,” The Bismeaux Releases: 2008’s “Miss Understood,” 2011’s “Peace Meal” (recorded at Bismeaux and Levon Helm Studios in Woodstock,) 2015’s “Live Texas Trio”; and here we are with 2017’s “Moon Goes Missing.”

Carolyn also got to stretch out with other bands and notably appears in Jerry Lightfoot’s Band of Wonder’s 2002 release, “Texistentialism” featuring Jerry Lightfoot, Vince Welnick (Grateful Dead, The Tubes, Todd Rundgren,) Carolyn, Barry “Frosty” Smith (Lee Michaels, Sly & the Family Stone, Rare Earth, Soulhat) and Larry Fulcher (Taj Mahal, Phantom Blues Band). She has released many songs for charity, 2016’s “Room at the Inn” (iTunes) benefits Doctors Without Borders, 2013’s “Money in the Game” (featuring Marcia Ball and Shelley King) benefits Planned Parenthood, “the Farmer Song” from “Miss Understood” benefits Farm AID, “Annie’s Scarlet Letter” from “Bloodless Revolution” benefits NORML, 1997 Justice Records released Carolyn’s version of Little Screamin’ Kenny’s holiday lament, “Blue Lights” (featuring Ian McLagan) benefitting MD Anderson Children’s Art Project.

Carolyn’s first appearance on vinyl? She’s with James Williamson (Stooges) on the April 2014 Record Store Day single, “Open Up & Bleed” AND on the full LP inspired by that fun session, “Re-Licked” featuring Raw Power Era songs with cool and risky guests.

Her circle of musician friends and admirers broadened to include not only Ray [Benson, who produced Miss Understood] but also the late Eddy Shaver, Shelley King, and yes, Bob Dylan, who likened her composition “Bloodless Revolution” to “a mystery movie theme.” She appeared on the same taping with Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings when she made her debut on PBS’ “Austin City Limits” (Season 35.) and had the thrill of her life when Bonnie Raitt joined her onstage for “The Road to Austin” concert film featuring Stephen Bruton and all his friends, got to play with James Cotton, Pinetop Perkins, and so many others at Antone’s, she and Erin Jaimes put together a benefit for Uncle John Turner and Johnny Winter insisted on bringing his band by to play, Carolyn’s wedding to A. Whitney Brown was officiated by Mike Nesmith (Monkees,) who serendipitously introduced them on set at VideoRanch in 2010. (there is a video of the two of them on stage together that day!) She began co-writing with locals Sarah Brown, Shelley King, Marcia Ball, Ruthie Foster, Cindy Cashdollar, and Guy Forsyth; sat in with Los Lobos, Levon Helm, Vintage Trouble, Robert Earl Keen, and Ray Wylie Hubbard; and toured relentlessly for the past two decades, sometimes with luminaries like Dave Alvin, Buddy Guy and Johnny Winter, so far spreading her music in US, Europe, South America and Japan. She also claims membership in the all-girl Sis Deville, the gospel-infused Imperial Crown Golden Harmonizers, the Texas Guitar Women, and the Woodstock Lonestars.

Carolyn recently joined John Mayall’s Band as his guitarist and is balancing life on the road with writing time at home and on the way. She’s been touring for over 25 years and ain’t done yet. Come and see it at a show! (seriously, she’s perpetually on tour.)

Musician John Egan has a unique sound ranging from traditional country blues to a more modern songwriter style.  He is a masterfully skilled guitar player who uses poetic lyrics and vintage resonator guitars to create an expressive personal music. Often performing solo, Egan’s guitar style includes, in effect, playing bass, lead, and percussion, all at the same time. He says, “the rarefied air where Lightnin’ Hopkins met Townes Van Zandt serves as an inspiration and an ideal.”

He has immersed himself into his music resulting in a wide body of work that documents the progression of an artistic life.  Garnering local acclaim and a mention in the New York Times,  Egan's last two releases set the stage for a return to his roots.  On Magnolia City he produces a 10-song collection featuring just his voice,
stomping boots, and a National Steel guitar that focuses on his live playing and songwriting.  

At the age of 70, Houston’s master soul-bluesman Leonard “Lowdown” Brown will release his debut record, Blues is Calling Me, via Music Maker Foundation. Founded in 1994 by Tim and Denise Duffy, the non-profit helps “the true pioneers and forgotten heroes of Southern music gain recognition and meet their day-to-day needs.” Leonard is proud to be a part of their community, enthusing, “I’ve dealt with record companies before, and their bottom line is different from Music Maker’s. They are behind the musicians, pushing them and trying to get people exposed that would otherwise never be seen. It has been real fine to be a part of it.”  - American Blues Scene

Diunna Greenleaf, the leader of Blue Mercy, is a native Texan (Houston) who has a background steeped in gospel music. Influencedby the likes of Koko Taylor, Aretha Franklin, Rosetta Thorpe, Sam Cooke, Charles Brown and her own parents Ben & Mary Ella Greenleaf (Gospel). She has developed "Diunna's style of Blues" in the same tradition as so many other great Texas blues menand women. She combines intricate patches of jazz, gospel and heartfelt soul to create a kind blues that takes one on an emotional roller coaster ride.
 

Diunna and her band Blue Mercy have performed throughout the United States and Internationally. She has performed at the Lugano Blues Festival and the Bern Jazz Festival, both in Switzerland, as well as the Cahors Blues Festival in France. Diunna has opened for and performed with the likes of Bob Margolin, Keb Mo, Willie “Pinetop” Perkins, Hubert Sumlin, Willie “Big Eyes” Smith, James Cotton, Carrie Bell, Big Bill Morganfield, Smoking Joe Kubek and B’NoisKing, Anson Funderburge, Sam Meyers and the Rockets, Bernard Allison, Odetta, Rod Piazza and the Mighty Flyers, I.J. Gosey, Sherman Robertson, Kenny Neal, Percy Sledge and the late great Teddy “Cry Cry” Reynolds, and numerous others.
 

Diunna's commitment to Blues goes well beyond performing on stage. She served for three years as President of the Houston Blues Society, making history as the first woman ever elected to this position. During her presidency she used her professional guidance and grant writing skills to produce the Willie Mae Thornton Blues Festival, bringing in such talent as “The Queen Of Blues” Mrs. Koko Taylor, Mr. Bernard Allison, Texas Johnny Brown, I.J. Gosey, Diane Price, Mel Waiters, Betty Lewis, Gary Clark, Jr., Jeremy And The Hotboys, along with many others. Diunna started the annual Houston Blues Society Founders Day and actively continued the Blues In Schools Program throughout the state. She is one of the founders of Friends of Blues Montgomery County. Diunna was nominated for the "Traditional Blues Female Artist of the Year" at the 2009 Blues Music Awards; she was the winner of "Best New Artist Debut" at the 2008 Blues Music Awards where she was also nominated for "Traditional Blues Female Artist of the Year." Diunna was nominated for the "Koko Taylor Award-Traditional Blues Female" and "Traditional Blues Album-Trying To Hold On" at the 2012 Blues Music Awards. She was the winner of the "Koko Taylor Award-Traditional Blues Female" in 2014 and 2017. Her latest CD "Trying To Hold On" reached #1 on XM/Sirius Radio Bluesville Chart, #1 on French Blues charts, #1 on Living Blues charts for the month of December 2012, and reached the top of Blues charts in UK, Australia and USA.Overall, the multi-talented singer/sax player debuted in Europe and met with music industry dignitaries in three countries. Looking back it would have been almost impossible for this lovely lady from the barrios of Mexico City to envision reaching the big stages around the world. It all began with Evelyn being introduced to the stage as a very young girl. She also appeared in lead children’s television programs where she performed as a singer, dancer, actor and later came to a musical theater where she toured as the lead role (Mary Magdalene) in a Canadian production of Jesus Christ Superstar. Equally important at the very same time, was her growing interest in American blues, soul, jazz, rock, and R&B and of all instruments, the saxophone. (She now plays the tenor, alto, and soprano). After Jesus Christ Superstar, Evelyn would leave the stage and tour with a rock band in Mexico honing her skills on the sax and building those famous musical chops that everyone in the business raves about. She would also divide her time with a ten-piece orchestra in Mexico City so that she could take care of her mother and family. Evelyn’s range combined with her passion for the arts would soon be delivering meaningful, contemporary music and Evelyn knew that if you wanted to grow musically America is the place to be. This is where Evelyn would meet Mr. Calvin Owens, in Houston Texas USA, just a short time after arriving in America.