ATTENTION: This benefit and celebration of the music of the great Lazy Lester has been scheduled since his passing in late August. The NEW sad fact is Lester’s spouse, Pike Kaksonen, lost her home & all her & Lester’s belongings in the Paradise fire. She REALLY needs everyone to show up & give moral/financial support to her! Please tell your friends/enemies/strangers all to show up for this important remembrance & benefit for Lester & Pike. This is of paramount importance in the blues community.

One of America's most notable musicians and architect of a music genre known as "Swamp Blues," Lester's original mash-up of Louisiana blues, rockabilly and country styles made him unique. Dwight Yoakam, The Fabulous Thunderbirds and The Kinks all recorded his songs, many of them now considered blues standards. Just this year, Lester was featured in a GEICO television commercial: 

Read the NY Times Lazy Lester obit here: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/24/obituaries/lazy-lester-bluesman-dead.html

American blues vocalist and harmonica player.

Born in San Francisco in 1949, he met guitarist Little Charlie Baty in 1973 and formed Little Charlie And The Nightcats in 1976.

Estrin, fronting this band for 30 years until Baty retired in 2008, formed Rick Estrin And The Nightcats the same year with the remeining bandmembers plus newly recruited Norwegian guitarist Kid Andersen.

Born in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1948, harmonica player Lee Oskar landed in the United States in the mid 1960s. He is best known as one of the founding members of the seminal jam band War. Oskar founded a company in 1983, Lee Oskar Harmonica, which manufactures high-quality harmonicas.

“Hummel plays the harmonica with the fat, full sound that made Little Walter sound almost like a saxophonist rather than a harp man.” -Chicago Sun-Times

Besides producing and playing on Blind Pig's Remembering Little Walter with Charlie Musselwhite, Billy Boy Arnold, Sugar Ray Norcia, James Harman, Little Charlie Baty, Nathan James, June Core & RW Grigsby, the CD was nominated for a Grammy Award and has recently won 2014 Best Blues Album & Best Traditional Blues Album of the Year at the Blues Music Awards in Memphis. Hummel's new CD on ElectroFi The Hustle Is Really On ranked #2 on Living Blues Radio Chart and features the Golden State-Lone Star all star players. 

"Mark Hummel came of age in the early 70s, at the height of rock and roll,like many of his peers went and bought a harmonica and hasn't stopped playing since. A specialist in 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