It’s Time to
Get Rollin’ With the Blues Boss on New CD from Kenny “Blues Boss” Wayne,
Coming April 22 on Stony Plain Records with
Special Guests
Eric Bibb and Diunna Greenleaf
EDMONTON, AB – Stony Plain Records, Canada’s premier roots
music label, announces an April 22 release date for Rollin’ With the Blues
Boss, the new CD from keyboardist/singer extraordinaire Kenny “Blues
Boss” Wayne. Produced by Tom Lavin, Kenny’s new CD also features special guest
appearances on one track each by Eric Bibb (vocals, acoustic guitar) and Diunna
Greenleaf (vocals).
Kenny “Blues Boss” Wayne’s last album for Stony Plain,
An Old Rock On a Roll (2011), garnered him a nomination for the
Pinetop Perkins Piano Award from the Blues Foundation, as well as being
awarded two 2012 Living Blues Awards, one for
“Best New Contemporary Blues Recording of 2011” and one for Wayne
as “Most Outstanding Musician (Keyboard).”
Wayne is a veteran blues and boogie piano player and also a
three-time Juno Award nominee (Canada’s Grammy), including a win for his
Let It Loose CD. His main influences are Fats Domino and Chuck
Berry’s long-time piano player Johnnie Johnson, as well as Amos Milburn, Bill
Doggett and Johnny Otis, king of the West Coast blues sound of the
‘50s.
He was raised in Los Angeles,
San Francisco and New Orleans, but has been a long-time resident of Vancouver,
British Columbia, where his new album was recorded. He is now living in beautiful Kelowna,
British Columbia.
A touring musician from his teens onward, Wayne settled in Vancouver some
30 years ago, but is rarely home — thanks to extended tours in Canada, the U.S.
and Europe. His bass-heavy boogie piano work, as well as his original songs,
makes for powerful live performances, enhanced by the flashy splendor of his
boldly colored, French custom-tailored stage suits.
On Rollin’ With the Blues Boss, he flashes all
of that and more on the album’s 11 all-original tracks, loaded with excursions
into boogie-woogie, New Orleans-fueled R&B, blues, jazz and good-time rock
‘n roll. With Kenny Wayne, it’s all rolled up into one sartorially resplendent
gem of-a-complete entertainer.
Of the new album’s many highlights, “Leavin’ In the Morning”
kicks things off in fine style with a bouncy, bluesy riff that recalls B. B.
King’s “Never Make Your Move Too Soon;” and “You Bring Out the Jungle In Me,” is
aided by a punchy horn section that provides the same kick on several other
songs. Blues Music Award-winner Diunna Greenleaf trades lead vocals with Wayne
on the soul-blues ballad, “Baby, It Ain’t You;” and another BMA winner, Eric
Bibb, supplies lead vocals and an acoustic guitar solo on the rollicking “Two
Sides.” The jazzy-flavored “I Can’t Believe It” sounds like a song outtake from
an old Bill Withers session; and “Ogopogo Boogie” is straight Crescent City
N’awlins classic grooves from start to finish. The “Blues Boss” closes out the
set in fine style as only he can, accompanied by just a drummer and pounding the
88s into submission on the instrumental, “Out Like a Bullet.”
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