The winners of the 37th Blues Music Awards were announced last night in Memphis, with Buddy Guy, Walter Trout, Otis Clay, Cedric Burnside, and Victor Wainwright each taking home a pair of awards in a five-way tie for the event’s big winner.
Guy received awards for album and contemporary album of the year for his Born to Play Guitar; Trout took home the gold for both rock blues album (Battle Scars) and song (“Gonna Live Again”); and the late Clay won in the soul male artist and soul blue album categories for his collaboration with Pittsburgh’s Billy Price on This Time for Real. Burnside was honored for traditional blues album (Descendants of Hill Country) and his work on drums, while Wainwright got the nods for band and B.B. King Entertainer of the year.
Among the night’s other winners were Joe Louis Walker for contemporary male artist, Shemekia Copeland for contemporary female artist, John Primer for traditional male artist, Ruthie Foster for traditional female artist (Koko Taylor Award), Doug MacLeod for acoustic artist, Sonny Landreth on guitar, Kim Wilson on harmonica, and the late Allen Toussaint for Pinetop Perkins Piano Player. You can view the full list of winners on the American Blues Scene site.
Congratulations to all of last night’s winners and all of this year’s nominees.