Billy Branch + the Sons of Blues
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 24
TIME: 5:00-6:00PM
VENUE: WEST STAGE. MIDWAY PLAISANCE AT South ELLIS AVE.
Photo by Claudia Harrison
Man (Billy Branch) looking at camera while playing harmonica wearing gold suit and fedora
BILLY BRANCH
Billy Branch is an Emmy Award winner, a three-time Grammy Award nominee, and a retired Grammy governor. He’s won multiple Blues Music Awards (BMA), three Living Blues Critics’ Awards, and two BMA Keeping the Blues Alive Awards for his Blues in Schools programs, not to mention an Addy Award for his on-screen commercial work.
Branch is particularly proud to have been a 2020 inductee into the international Blues Foundation’s Blues Hall of Fame Museum in Memphis, where there is now a display honoring his music legacy—and to have his work featured in the Grammy Museum’s Songs of Conscience, Sounds of Freedom installation recognizing the life and work of Woody Guthrie.
Branch’s touring career began in the late 1970s, with his seven-year tenure as harmonica player in the Willie Dixon All Stars. Since then, he has spent nearly fifty years presenting America’s rich cultural blues heritage to audiences around the globe. He is one of the last living bluesmen to have been mentored by the original blues giants, and has appeared on over three hundred recordings, including fifteen under his own name.
Branch currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors of both the Blues Foundation and the Little Walter Foundation.