Bill Abel

Bio:

One Man Band CD was recorded live with no overdubbs featuring Bill at vocals, guitar, kick drum, foot snare, and foot hihat It is available at most digital download sites and CD BABY. At 46 years old Bill Abel has learned blues first hand from musicians he has known throughout his life. Born and raised in the Mississippi Delta town of Belzoni, Bill has played with blues legends such as Honey Boy Edwards, Henry Townsend, Hubert Sumlin, Big George Brock and local blues musicians such as T-Model Ford, Sam Carr, Cadillac John, Monroe Jones, David Lee Durham, Tommy Hollis, WH Lowe and most notably the late recording artist and W.C. Handy Award nominee, Paul “Wine” Jones. Paul traveled extensively playing blues across the world from Europe to Japan. Paul Jones has been a major influence on Bill’s music. Quote “I met Paul Jones when I was young, while trying to learn how to play blues in Belzoni”. Almost 25 years later Bill has had the privilege of playing authentic Delta blues with many bluesmen in many different settings from juke joints to Blues Festivals across the Delta,Chicago Blues Festival, the northeast , northwest, and midwest United States to Belgium, Italy, England, Wales and Switzerland. These experiences have been used in Bill’s recorded music along with the influences of traditional delta music of the 20's and 30's. Bill has been written up in US, French, Belgium, British, Sweden and Italian publications. In 2004 he taught the blues guitar workshop at the 2nd Annual International Blues Symposium and is a featured performer in films including; M for Mississippi( Won Blues Award), Down the Tracks, The Roots of Led Zepplin and Club Ebony. In the past Bill has played with legendary drummer Sam Carr, Kenny Kimbrough of the Junior Kimbrough band, Terry Harmonica Bean, Cadillac John Nolden, Monroe Jones, George Brock, Jimmy “Duck” Holmes, and other local bluesmen. In 2006 Bill had the rare privilege of recording with Hubert Sumlin (Howling Wolf’s Guitar player), and was recently awarded the 2006 Blues Musician of the Year presented by the Mississippi Delta Blues Society of Indianola. Also in 2006, bill played guitar on the WC Handy nominated CD" Round Two" with Big George Brock. Other recordings include: "Searchin For Odell Harris" ,bill abel- guitar, "Live At The Longshot" with the legendary Sam Carr on drums, bill on vocals and guitar, and"Crazy About You", with harmonica player Cadillac John Nolden, live at 75(also wc handy nominated) with Big George Brock and also the Hard Times DVD with Big George- Bill-guitar, and others. Recently bill played guitar on the mississippi marvel's cd the "world must never know"cd , T- Model Ford's new cd jack daniel time, and M for Mississippi film(WC Handy award winning). He has also done engineering and producing work for Broke and Hungry Records and Cathead Records thru his studio "Big Toe Studio". Bill does landscape painting and pottery when he is not playing music. You can view some art here on myspace and also http://www.yellowdog.nl or http://materialmississippi.org/AbelArtistPage.html

Member Since:

December 19, 2006

Members:

Bill Abel vocals, guitar and foot drums

Influences:

Christ, Paul "Wine" Jones, Tommy Hollins, Junior Kimbrough, Son Thomas, Cadillac John, Fred Mcdowell

Sounds Like:

JukeJoint, Delta-Hill Blues

Record Label:

Blueskunk