Chris was born in Washington, DC, and raised in Massachusetts on down-home cooking in addition to on blues, jazz, rhythm & blues, and gospel music by his New York Metropolis dad and North Carolina mother. Earlier than beginning to play guitar at fourteen years outdated, he studied in Germany, the place his dad was a visiting professor of American and African American Cultural Research. Later, as an artwork and music main on the College of Massachusetts, Chris participated in jazz workshops with Archie Shepp and in a summer time session at Berklee.
He additionally studied guitar with Tony MacAlpine. His main influences vary from B.B. King and Albert Collins to Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan. Songwriter, lead guitarist, and vocalist, Chris Bell, Silver Bridge Recording blues artist from North Hollywood, California, is now on tour that includes his newest CD launch “Actual Bluesman” along with his band, 100% Blues.
They’ve additionally only in the near past launched their reside live performance DVD “Stage on Fireplace”, filmed domestically in Tujunga, CA. Chris and his band “100% Blues” options Chuck Maithonis on bass and backing vocals, Stephen “DJ Sticks” Marshall on drums, and Dan Pulos on Hammond Organ. They’ve been efficiently touring the Western US, and recurrently head out to the East Coast each summer time. They’ve acquired rave evaluations of their newest album “Actual Bluesman” in such magazines as Blues Revue, Residing Blues, Southland Blues, Huge Metropolis Rhythm & Blues, and extra.
Jim Santos of Southland Blues Journal wrote – “Bell comes up with a winner that can undoubtedly wind up amongst this yr’s high ten blues albums.” Of his earlier album – “ ‘Hell Is Too Scorching For Me’ is definitely the perfect unique blues guitar album to inhabit my CD participant this yr,” writes the reviewer for the Centre Day by day Instances, “possibly the perfect blues album interval.”
Chris Bell’s earlier two CDs, “Blues 2001” and “CHRIS BELL & 100% Blues: LIVE” and his reside performances of principally unique songs have acquired rave evaluations. “Mixing up the temper with catchy lyrics and a few darkish lowdown blues,” says the reviewer for Southwest Blues, “Bell exhibits a aptitude for blues kinds previous and current.” “Bell performed guitar dirtier than filth,” the Southland Blues reviewer writes about Bell’s efficiency on the Irvine Lake Blues Pageant.
“His largest and coolest trait is his grit and dirty voice that’s so distinctive it’s in a category alone.” His single “Elevator to Heaven” was been among the many high downloaded songs on MP3 in 1999. Chris can be at the moment the producer and host of “100% Blues,” a cable entry TV present within the Los Angeles space.
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