Pottstown, PA. (Top40 Charts/ MVD Entertainment Group) Corey Harris is a guitarist, songwriter, and performer who is leading a contemporary revival of country blues with a fresh, modern hand. He is a powerful and compelling singer and an accomplished guitarist whose musical artistry is complemented by serious explorations of the historical and cultural conditions that gave rise to the blues.
Corey Harris was born in Denver, Colorado to parents from
Texas and Kentucky, he has carved out his own niche in Blues appearing at venues throughout the world. He began his career as a New Orleans street singer, travelling throughout the southern U.S. In his early twenties he lived in Cameroon, West Africa for a year, which had a profound effect on his later work. He has recorded many old songs of the blues tradition while also creating an original vision of the blues by adding influences from reggae, soul, rock and West African music. His 1995 recording, Between Midnight and Day, is a tribute to the tradition of acoustic blues. Subsequent recordings, such as Greens From the Garden (1999), Mississippi to Mali (2003), and Daily
Bread (2005) show Harris' maturation from interpreter to songwriter.
Some of his imaginative compositions are marked by a deliberate eclecticism; other works stay true to the traditional blues formula of compelling vocals and down-home guitar. With one foot in tradition and the other in contemporary experimentation, Harris is a truly unique voice in contemporary music, well on his way to becoming the alchemist of black music, recombining its constituent elements into new and powerful substances.
He has performed, recorded, and toured with many of the top names in music such as BB King, Taj Mahal,
Buddy Guy, R.L.Burnside, Ali Farka Tour,
Dave Matthews Band, Tracy Chapman, Wilco,
Natalie Merchant, and others. Harris was a featured artist and narrator of the
Martin Scorsese film, "Feel Like Going Home," which traced the evolution of Blues from West Africa to the southern U.S.
