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| As
a youth in eastern Tennessee where country & western music still prevails,
Wallace Coleman was instead captivated by the sounds he heard late at night from
Nashville’s WLAC….the Blues. The sounds haunted him by day where, he says, "I would be sittin’ in class and hear the Howlin’ Wolf singin’ just as clear in my head…" It was on WLAC that Coleman first heard those who would become Blues Legends and greatest musical influences: Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson, Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters. Laying the guitar foundation on many of those recordings was Robert Jr. Lockwood – a man who, some 25 years in Coleman’s future, would play a role in his musical career. |
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| Coleman left Tennessee in
1956 to find work in Cleveland, Ohio. He found steady work and, to his delight, an active
Blues community where Jimmy Reed, Sonny Boy Williamson, Muddy Waters, Elmore James, B.B.
King and others came to perform. A self-taught musician, Coleman played the harmonica on his breaks at work. One day a co-worker brought his cousin to the jobsite to hear Coleman play. That meeting sparked a year-long pairing with Cleveland’s Guitar Slim at the Cascade Lounge. |
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| It was there that Coleman caught the ear of audience member Robert Jr. Lockwood. Asked by Lockwood to join his band, Coleman expressed that he first wanted to retire from his day job. Two years later, in 1987, a newly-retired Coleman did indeed contact Lockwood. That call initiated a 10 year position in Lockwood’s band. Wallace Coleman remains the only harmonica player invited by Lockwood to join his band. | |||||||||||||||||
| Lockwood said he would never hire a harmonica player; then he heard Wallace Coleman play. | It was an honor to take the stage with the guitarist who had created some of the classic guitar parts on the recordings of Coleman’s harmonica heroes---the same recordings he first heard over WLAC’s airwaves some 30 years earlier. An innovator himself, Coleman created 3rd position harmonica parts for several Robert Johnson songs performed by Lockwood (Johnson’s step-son and student). Performing and traveling in the U.S., Canada and overseas with Lockwood were Coleman’s first steps onto his own professional musical path. | ||||||||||||||||
| By 1996, bandmates formed the Wallace Coleman Band and later informed Coleman himself! This simply confirmed what his fellow musicians already knew….that people wanted to hear more from Wallace Coleman. In 1997, Coleman left Lockwood’s band and graduated to the post of full-time bandleader. Shortly before leaving, Coleman performed on Lockwood’s Grammy-nominated CD, "I Gotta Find Me A Woman." | |||||||||||||||||
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| Wallace Coleman’s first CD garnered high praise in the U.S. and abroad. Living Blues wrote "…this delightful CD must be rated one of the year’s finest offerings of classic Chicago Blues," (J. DeKoster, Sept/Oct 1997). | |||||||||||||||||
| In 2000, Coleman’s own record label, Pinto Blue Music, was established. | |||||||||||||||||
| In 2000, Coleman’s own record label, Pinto Blue Music, was established. As he notes, "There is great joy in creative freedom." In addition, he is very proud of Pinto Blue Music’s first release, "Stretch My Money." | |||||||||||||||||
| Wallace Coleman has plans for future releases on his new label as well. Those plans include a live recording which will cover many of the selections from his very first CD, in particular his original compositions. | |||||||||||||||||
About
Wallace /
Photos / Samples |
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