Chris Thomas King - guitar, vocals
New Orleans blues artist Chris Thomas King is a triple threat”musician, actor and business entrepreneur”but if you look at all his talents, he is really much more than that.
As a musician he plays electric guitar, acoustic guitar, steel guitar, bass guitar, dobro, piano, Fender Rhodes, Hammond B-3 organ, drums and he sings! In the studio he is a producer, an arranger and an engineer. As an actor he has made his mark in films and TV. And as business entrepreneur he has spearheaded a record label, based in his home town of New Orleans, reflecting his own artistic sensibilities as well as signing artists with a compatible point of view.
Chris Thomas King is now one of most recognized and successful blues artist of his generation. The multi Grammy award winning musician and actor grew up as a child-prodigy guitarist learning the blues at the feet of some of the music's masters back home in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Specifically at Tabby's Blues Box, a club owned by his father, Rockin' Tabby Thomas.
Chris Thomas King is probably best known for his role as blues singer “Tommy Johnson” in the film “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” and for his role as bluesman Lowell Fulson in the movie “Ray.”
Under his own name, King has been recording albums exploring the intersections between blues and hip-hop since the late 1980s. His most recent album, “Rise” was written and recorded after losing his home and recording studio to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and explores the aftermath of that disaster.
King is a true innovator”his music is authentic blues; it is contemporary blues. His performances and recordings bridge the past with the present and future, bringing blues into the digital age. As Willie Dixon once said, “the blues is the root and everything else is the fruits” King's music brings the fruits back home.
