8 Ball Aitken

Bio:

Australia’s best-loved banana picker (turned full‐time guitar picker) 8 Ball Aitken is touring with his award winning third album, ‘REBEL WITH A CAUSE’.

8 Ball Aitken is authentic ‐‐ a real‐deal character who rattles the roof, stomps the planks, and gets his audiences whooping and hollering along in a frenzy of pure exuberance. He plays a sizzling hot blend of original blues, roots & country music. Coming from a farming community in Far North Queensland, 8 Ball Aitken is the oldest son of an impoverished family of twelve children. 8 Ball spent his adolescence on a banana plantation, living in a rough tobacco shed with resident rats, bats, snakes, and spiders as his sleeping companions.

He started work as a farm labourer aged fifteen, doing back‐breakingly hard work on the mango and banana plantations of the Atherton Tablelands, a man's work for a boy's pay. A life‐changing conversation with an Aboriginal elder, who told him he should pursue a career in music, convinced 8 Ball to pack his bags, grab his guitar, and leave the farm to meet his destiny.

8 Ball won a 2009 Q Song Award for his song ‘OUTBACK BOOTY CALL’. Another song, ‘YELLOW MOON’, has won the EMI Music Blues & Roots Song of the Year at the Q Song Awards. His singles ‘CYCLONE COUNTRY’ & ‘HANDS ON TOP OF THE WHEEL’ have both been top 10 country hits around Australia in 2008 / 2009.

‘CYCLONE COUNTRY’ earned 8 Ball a 2009 Golden Guitar award nomination. The first single ‘COWBOY MOVIE’(from album ‘REBEL WITH A CAUSE’) was nominated for the 2009 APRA Blues & Roots Song of The Year, and has received radio airplay around in twenty‐six countries, including charting in the European Country Music Top 40.

8 Ball has taken his unique blues & roots sound to festivals and clubs across the world, including Australia, Europe, Japan and Canada, including Canadian Music Week 2009 and the Stan Rogers Festival. He’s toured in Japan four times, where he headlined the popular Rokko Sun Music Festival. He has played a string of dates in Singapore, the UK (including a live appearance on the BBC), Poland, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway.

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Member Since:

July 24, 2005

Members:

Influences:

The Allman Brothers Band, Johnny Cash, J.J Cale, Bob Dylan, Hound Dog Taylor, Elmore James, Magic Sam, Skip James, Son House, Albert King, Freddie King, B.B King, The Grateful Dead, Steve Earle, Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, John Fogerty, Tony Joe White, Seasick Steve, R.L Burnside, Bachman Turner Overdrive, Neil Young, Daddy Cool, Buddy Miller.

Sounds Like:

Australian swamp-blues & country-rock.

Record Label:

Phoenix Movement Records/ MGM (Australia)