Blues Music Award Nominations: Nominations for the 32nd Blues Music Awards, which will be held at the Cook Convention Center on May 5th, were announced yesterday.
Leading the nominations are a couple of the genre’s living legends: Chicago blues standard-bearer Buddy Guy and Memphis bred harmonica master Charlie Musselwhite, who scored five nominations each, including for Album of the Year (Guy’s Living Proof and Musselwhite’s The Well) and Song of the Year. Guy is also competing for the B.B. King Entertainer of the Year award. Reigning Entertainer of the Year winner Janiva Magness is close behind with four nominations.
In addition to Musselwhite, who is also competing for Instrumentalist — Harmonica, Traditional Blues Album, and Traditional Blues Male Artist, Memphis-connected nominations are plentiful.
Greenville-based Eden Brent, who records for the local Yellow Dog Records and plays in Memphis regularly, is up for Album of the Year for her terrific Ain’t Got No Troubles and is also competing for the Pinetop Perkins Piano Player award and Traditional Blues Female. In the later category, she’ll be competing with Memphis mainstay Reba Russell.
The South Memphis String Band — a group made up of Alvin Youngblood Hart, Jimbo Mathus, and the North Mississippi Allstars’ Luther Dickinson — are up for Acoustic Album for their debut Home Sweet Home. The Juke Joint Duo’s Cedric Burnside is up for Instrumentalist — Drummer. And the late Solomon Burke is up for Soul Blues Album for his swan song, Nothing’s Impossible, the final production from late Memphis legend Willie Mitchell.
Tickets for the May 5th awards show go on sale today, with a DVD memorializing the 2010 Blues Music Awards also available for purchase. Online voting by Blues Foundation members also kicks off today. See here for the full slate of nominees.
