Delta Wires Blues Band from Alameda, CA

VOTED BEST BAND 2008 of Oakland and the East Bay by the readers of OAKLAND MAGAZINE. The DELTA WIRES are a Big, 7-piece, High-Energy, Harmonica and Horns Blues band with 30+ years of experience and 5 CDs released. The DELTA WIRES were FINALISTS out of hundreds of bands from all over the world who won local contests for the right to appear in the National Blues Foundation's International Blues Challenge in Memphis, TN, 2008. They also appeared at the San Francisco Blues Festival (the oldest and most prestigious in the country) in 2008 and the Russian River Blues Festival with the Neville Bros and Dr. John in 2009. They sold-out an appearance at the Brewery Arts Center in Carson City NV, have appeared at the Monterey Bay Blues Festival 8 times, headlined the Shasta Blues Society's Redding Blues by the River Festival in 2005, have played the Northern California Blues Festival, Central Valley Blues Festival, Oakland Blues and Heritage Festival, KCSM Jazz on the Hill, Napa Valley Mustard Festival, and many other blues festivals, art & wine festivals, and summer concert series. Private event clients have included Hewlett Packard, the San Francisco Pacific Union Club on Nob Hill, the Palo Alto Black and White Ball, the Oakland Raiders, San Luis Obispo Mozart Festival pre-festival event, SF International Film Festival, SF Academy of Sciences, and many others. The DELTA WIRES have toured or played with many noted artists including Van Morrison, John Lee Hooker, Freddie King, The Doobie Brothers, Buddy Guy and Junior Wells, John Mayall, Charlie Musselwhite, Boz Scaggs, Bad Company, The James Gang, Elvin Bishop, and numerous others… The band was conceived by vocalist and harmonica player, Ernie Pinata, as a college arts project. Pinata established that the blues was art, that all its components were highly sophisticated elements of a culturally-derived art form created in the Mississippi Delta and rural southern America and developed to high art in northern, urban cities… a unique perspective that lends serious credence to how one can view and hear the blues. That was over 30 years ago, and the Wires have continued to perform and to keep their original vision alive. The DELTA WIRES play a mix of original music and their own arrangements of blues and R&B classics. For a tight, kick-ass live performance, a get'em up & dancin' show, BOOK the DELTA WIRES. A FEW PRESS REVIEWS: "DELTA WIRES rocked the stage at the 36th Annual (2008) San Francisco Blues Festival, proving what great talents these stalwarts of Bay Area blues truly are. They got the crowd shaking and moving and set the pace for a simmering day of blues." -Tom Mazzolini, Producer, San Francisco Blues Festival "a tough, rocking, socking band, knocking out crowds...the WIRES are burning up!" -Joel Selvin, San Francisco Chronicle "From jump rhythms to nasty, lowdown Windy City laments, DELTA WIRES electrifies the audience... This tight Bay Area troop, fronted by vocalist/harmonica genius/composer Ernie Pinata, melds Mississippi Delta tunes and Chicago-style arrangements with rock, soul, and swing sensitivity... It's terrific! This rockin' blues band is spectacular -- tight, topical, and torrid". -Lee Cooper, Ph.D. - Rock & Blues News "They blow hard from the get-go, a tight horn section blending comfortably with the spirited, intense harmonica from lead man Ernie Pinata…as fierce a Sonny Boy Williamson-influenced harp as you will find" -Bill Kisliuk, BLUES ACCESS Magazine