Blues and Bourbon Wednesdays: Rusty Zinn, Andy Santana and Friends

An all star-night of music! A young, red-haired guitarist with a monster tone and technique that belies his relatively young years, Rusty Zinn grew up in the Santa Cruz mountains in northern California. He was introduced to classic R&B through his mother’s collection of 45 singles, which included rare discs from Fats Domino and Elvis Presley. While in his teens, his brother brought home recordings by Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf, and these proved to be a revelation for the young blues aficionado. For 25+ years, he has toured the world playing blues, soul and reggae, and released award-winning records on multiple labels.

In 2018-19, Zinn had an unexpected a #1 hit single in Brazil “She Comes From Nothing.”

Rusty says: “The universe has been very good to me, giving me opportunities to meet and record with a lot of my heroes in Jamaican music, people that are considered the pioneers and architects of the music. Once I first started trying to record my own reggae, blues people would come up and tell me how cool it was that I was fusing blues and reggae. I would look at them in wonder, thinking don’t you hear the blues that is already there. Before ska music was created, the Jamaicans were playing blues, what was called bluebeat, which was nothing more than a lot of Roscoe Gordon shuffles. Over the years I have come to realize that everything I love musically has its roots in Africa. All the music, the culture, it all goes back to Africa. So it is all blues to me.”

Andy Santana-  With 35 years experience fronting bands in Northern California, Andy Santana has been a featured artist in venues as varied as the Monterey Blues Festival & Monterey Jazz Festival, the San Francisco Blues Festival, the Fillmore, the Santa Cruz Blues Festival, the Jazz and Heritage Festival in New Orleans, Battle of the Harps @ Victoria Theater San Francisco, San Jose Jazz Fest, the Shoreline Amphitheater, venues from Seattle to Belgium and many, many more.

In late 2018, Andy Santana was inducted into the Sacramento Blues Society Hall of Fame. He is also a Delta Groove Music recording artist. His latest CD, Watch Your Step (2015)  was released worldwide and garnered rave reviews.

The all- star rhythm section this night is SBS Hall of Fame member Greg Roberts (Harold Sessions Trio) and  Larry Carr (Harold Sessions Trio).