Mark Hummel
Mark Hummel is a Grammy nominated Blues Music Award winning American blues harmonica player, vocalist, songwriter, and longtime bandleader of The Blues Survivors. Since 1991, Hummel has produced the Blues Harmonica Blowout tour, of which he is also a featured performer. The shows have featured blues harmonica players such as James Cotton, Carey Bell, and Charlie Musselwhite. Although he is typically identified as performing West Coast blues, Hummel is also proficient in Delta blues, Chicago blues, swing and jazz styles.
Mark Hummel was born in New Haven, Connecticut, and grew up in Los Angeles, California. Hummel and his family lived for a time in Aliso Village, a housing project in East Los Angeles that was demolished in 1999. As Hummel explains in his forthcoming autobiography, his parents hired Mexican babysitters who often played RampB and soul music on the radio when they cared for him. It was through these babysitters that Hummel was first introduced to black music. Early on, he was also drawn to the music of Jimmy Reed and Slim Harpo. Hummel did not start playing harmonica seriously until high school, and by the age of sixteen he was already playing in bands.
Source: Wikipedia