Kent DuChaine


Kent DuChaine, is an American blues singer and guitarist.

Name

DuChaine's surname derives from France and his ancestors settled in Canada around the beginning of the 17th century, before becoming part of the Native American Chickasaw tribe.

Music career

DuChaine started in music when his father taught him to play the ukulele at six years old.
At 13 years old, he got his first electric guitar and formed a band with his friends in his hometown of Wayzata, Minnesota, playing mainly popular music at private parties and school functions.
After reading some liner notes of an Eric Clapton album, Kent started researching blues. DuChaine discovered a Robert Johnson album and was astounded and fascinated at the banging sound as the bottle neck knocked against the frets as Johnson slid it up and down the neck of his guitar. Determined to recapture the sound, Kent used a butter knife at first. DuChaine immersed himself in the blues of Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Lightnin' Hopkins, T-Bone Walker and Bukka White and learned to play the slide guitar, soon developing his own ferocious style.
In 1970, DuChaine opened a show for Bukka White.
From 1972 until 1975, DuChaine performed in a band with Kim Wilson. The band backed blues musicians including Fenton Robinson, Boogie Woogie Red, Luther Tucker, Hubert Sumlin and Eddie "Guitar" Burns. The reputation of the band grew and Willie Dixon arranged a recording contract and a concert sharing the bill with Albert Collins, John Lee Hooker and Howlin' Wolf.
In 1979, DuChaine acquired Leadbessie, a beat-up 1934 National Steel Guitar in an equally beat-up case and with extra heavy strings.
DuChaine discovered and looked up Johnny Shines in 1989. They travelled together for three years and performed over 200 shows. In that time they recorded Back To the Country with Snooky Pryor, and were honoured with a Blues Music Award for best country blues album, but they did not add DuChaine's name to the recording. In 1991, the Smithsonian Institution honoured the King of the Delta Blues, Robert Johnson. DuChaine and Shines were invited to perform and Roots Of Rhythm & Blues: A Tribute to the Robert Johnson Era was the result. This was recorded by Sony BMG and also Grammy nominated. DuChaine and Shines' partnership and friendship was cut short when Johnny Shines died on 20 April 1992.
Since going solo in 1982 and hitting the road in the United States, Kent has clocked-up over three million miles, including over a hundred tours in Europe, promoting the Delta blues. DuChaine also speaks of the history of the blues, the men who developed it, and his involvement with some of them, to audiences, with songs such as "Shake Your Moneymaker", "Jitterbug Swing”, "Trouble in Mind" and "St James Infirmary Blues". The Times newspaper has named him as one of the five best concerts in the United Kingdom.