 |
Saturday evening features Homemade Jamz, the youngest Blues Music Award nominees in Blues Foundation history. Homemade Jamz might have only taken second place at the 2007 International Blues Challenge, but they walked away with everyone's hearts.
“These young kids have got energy, talent and do the blues proud with their own flavor. I believe they’ve got a GREAT future ahead.” – B.B. King
Brothers Ryan and Kyle Perry, along with little sister Taya, got their start in Baumholder, Germany when father Renaud Perry returned from military service in Korea. Young Ryan found a Stratocaster copy among dad’s bags and wanted it. He learned how to play a song within a week, and when the family relocated to Tupelo, the passion stayed with him. Returning home, Ryan, at the time 11, dove head first into the blues. Kyle, nine, wanted in on the fun, and learned how to play bass. |
|
Taya, then seven, joined in when their first drummer didn't work out, joining her brothers at the fabled Ground Zero Blues Club in Clarksdale, Mississippi. Their story was featured on CBS Sunday Morning, and BB King said “In my 82 years, I’ve never seen something musically… so remarkable.”
Homemade Jamz won the 3rd Annual MS Delta Blues Society of Indianola’s Blues Challenge (2006), and were the youngest band ever to compete in the International Blues Challenge (2007), taking 2nd out of a field of 157 bands from across the globe. Like Susan Tedeschi before them, they turned their second place at the IBC into a record deal, tours all around the world, and appearances on The Today Show and NPR's All Things Considered.
Fred Litwin, president of the esteemed label NorthernBlues Music, was a judge for the event. Fred called HJBB and announced he was keen to make them the youngest blues band to sign with a major record label. “Mister Fred,” as the Perrys call him, made it happen. True to their name, the band recorded Pay Me No Mind at home, over three days in January 2008.
Rife with powerful, puissant songs that lyrically and musically epitomize the blues, Pay Me No Mind blends Chicago and Mississippi juke joint blues, copping the gritty slickness of the former and the dirty soul of the latter—never betraying its authors’ age. The trio exudes nothing but confidence and attitude as they sing of betrayal, love, hard times and other bad things gone down as if they’ve lived a life rich in strife. They are, to be sure, a veritable blues explosion poised to make the big sound.
Which again begs the question: how do a seven-year-old and his younger siblings get the blues? Ryan says they just “connect” with the music, like it’s hard-wired into them. He and his siblings don’t think in those terms. “We all love the blues,” he says matter-of-factly. “For some reason it just comes naturally to us.”
Web Site MySpace YouTube |
