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Kenny "Blues Boss" Wayne

The Boogie-Woogie-Blues Piano Man

Kenneth Wayne Spruell was born in Spokane, Washington in 1944, and spent his early years in New Orleans with his Louisiana-born parents. At AGE 8, he moved with his family to San Francisco and then to Los Angeles. A child prodigy on piano, Kenny was encouraged by his preacher father to play gospel music. But unbeknownst to his father, the Reverend Matthew Spruell, he was also secretly introduced to the radically more exciting boogie-woogie style by his rebel uncle Charlie his father’s youngest brother. By his early teen years, Wayne was an accomplished keyboardist, working dozens of gigs during the early '60s -- including a 1962 appearance at the Alpha Bowling Club with the great Jimmy Reed, the biggest blues hit-record king of all time. It was an infamous gig, featuring everything Kenny’s father, the Reverend Spruell, feared about the Devil's Music. A vicious brawl erupted in the crowded, smoky, alcohol-fueled club, and one man attacked another with a broken bottle, blood spraying everywhere. As Kenny recalls with a chuckle, "My Dad grabbed my mom with one hand and ran up to the stage and yanked me off the piano bench and led us through the kitchen and out the back exit... That was the end of my blues career for over 20 years"". By the late 1960s Kenny Wayne was in tight with the burgeoning Los Angeles soul/R&B scene, Wayne played with Delaney & Bonnie Bramlettwhen they were based in Sherman Oaks, CA and quickly became first-call keyboardist for live club and concert dates around L.A. Work with Billy Preston, members of Sly & The Family Stones and Doobie Brothers soon followed. The second half of the ‘70s saw Wayne moving to Canada, where he quickly established a strong reputation on the Manitoba-to-BC club circuit. Wayne’s reputation as a gifted keyboardist put him at the top of everyone's on-call list and he established himself not only with the R&B circuit, but also with Vancouver’s blues and jazz communities. Kenny's full transformation into "e;Blues Boss" (the nickname taken from the title of Amos Milburn's Motown Records comeback album) came about following a 1994 tour of Europe. Kenny's longtime passion for Fats Domino and Amos Milburn paid off in the form of star treatment from piano-loving European music fans. (quoted from Kenny "Blues Boss" Wayne's official website)

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Home → Overview → Blues Artists → Kenny "Blues Boss" Wayne