What an honor to get this session at the 2017 30A Songwriter Festival main stage at Grand Boulevard. For fifty years, Kent DuChaine has traveled around the globe with "Leadbessie," his duct-taped 1934 National Steel Guitar. Over the decades, DuChaine has shared the stage with such music icons as Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, John Lee Hooker, Big Mama Thornton, Koko Taylor, B.B. King, Albert and Freddie King, Willie Dixon, Bukka White, Robert JR Lockwood, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Furry Lewis and Son House. In 1989, DuChaine teamed up with Johnny Shines, a man who spent more than three years on-the-road with the mythical Robert Johnson in the 1930s. Together, DuChaine and Shines recorded “Back to the Country,” which won the coveted WC Handy Award for "Best Country Blues Album." They were invited by the Smithsonian Institute to perform at the 25th Annual Festival of American Folklife, resulting in the Grammy-nominated, “Roots of Rhythm & Blues: A Tribute to the Robert Johnson Era.” www.kentduchaine.com
