(8CD)
BIOGRAPHY
The DELTA WIRES have recorded 8 Albums,and just released in January their
latest “if somebody told me…”, which is receiving rave reviews and
national and international airplay. They have appeared at the Umbria Jazz
Festival in Perugia Italy, the San Francisco Blues Festival, the Russian
River Blues Festival, the Monterey Bay Blues Festival 8 times, headlined
the Shasta Blues Society’s Redding Blues by the River Festival, have
played Crescent City Blues Festival, Central Valley Blues Festival,
Oakland Blues and Heritage Festival, Sacramento Jazz Festival and Jubilee,
and many others.
The DELTA WIRES have shared the stage with many noted artists including
Van Morrison, John Lee Hooker, Freddie King, The Neville Bros, Dr. John,
The Doobie Brothers, Buddy Guy and Junior Wells, John Mayall, Charlie
Musselwhite, Boz Scaggs, Bad Company, The James Gang, Elvin Bishop, and
numerous others…
Band Leader Ernie Pinata was a blues lover and collector. While in
college, he created a band to perform for credit, an anthology of the
evolution of the blues from it’s birth in field hollers to it’s
electrified form in the big cities like Chicago.
The band started by playing the clubs in Oakland – Esther’s Orbit Room
and The Continental Club, and Mandrake’s and The New Orleans House in
Berkeley. Around this time, Lowell Fulson sat-in with the DELTA
WIRES at the New Orleans House in Berkeley and Ernie sat-in with the
Freddie King Band at Mandrakes in Berkeley. This was followed by a
performance with Buddy Guy and Junior Wells at Keystone Berkeley. The
Delta Wires then began to open shows for these blues greats, and continued
to grow as musicians and as a band.
The DELTA WIRES name was derived from the image of a band playing a
high-energy electrified musical style born in the field hollers of the
Mississippi Delta which evolved into the blues and ultimately led to the
migration to Chicago of the Delta bluesmen. What began as a college
project and anthology of blues music from the Mississippi Delta to the
South Side of Chicago, inevitably evolved into a band which has become
known for its originality, versatility, and crisp, tight, exciting
sound.
