Billy Branch is an Emmy Award winner, a three time Grammy Award nominee, and a retired Grammy governor. He’s won multiple Blues Music Awards (BMA), three Living Blues Critics’ Awards and two BMA Keeping the Blues Alive Awards for his Blues in Schools programs. In addition, he is on the Board of Directors of both the Blues Foundation and the Little Walter Foundation. Branch is also a recipient of an Addy Award which is like an Oscar for TV ads for his on-screen commercial work. In addition to his numerous humanitarian awards, Branch is most proud of being a 2020 inductee into the international Blues Foundation’s Blues Hall of Fame Museum in Memphis. When you visit the museum you can see an installation display honoring his musical legacy. Billy’s work is also included in the Grammy Museum’s Woody Guthrie installation entitled SONGS OF CONSCIENCE, SOUNDS OF FREEDOM.
Branch’s touring career began in the late Seventies with his seven year tenure as harmonica player in the Willie Dixon All Stars. He has spent nearly fifty years presenting America’s rich cultural Blues heritage to audiences around the globe: from the Halls of Parliament in the Republic of Turkey, to the beautiful countries of South America, Central America, and Mexico, to Europe, to Australia, to the exotic countries of Asia, including Japan and the Republic of China. He’s also appeared on over three hundred recordings; fifteen under his own name. He is one of the last living bluesmen to have been mentored by the original blues giants.
After learning from the masters, he developed his own, instantly recognizable, signature sound—powerful, melodic, funky, jazzy and contemporary. Bruce Iglauer, Alligator Records CEO.
BILLY BRANCH