The Nick Moss Band will return to the Notodden Blues Festival in August, also this time with harmonica player Dennis Gruenling. The band is undoubtedly one of the very “hottest” in American blues at the moment, the nominations for this year’s Blues Music Awards are proof of that. Nick Moss Band featuring Dennis Gruenling is nominated in a total of seven categories.
Nick Moss has been to the Notodden Blues Festival several times in the past, but now he hasn’t been there since 2014. The Norwegian audience did get to know him at the latest last year when he did a longer tour of Norway.
The band gained no fewer followers in the country after that tour, so the concerts at Bok & Blueshuset are likely to be a highlight of this summer’s festival for fans of this type of blues. Carrying on the musical legacy of names like Rod Piazza and William Clarke, the Nick Moss Band are today’s foremost ambassadors of this swinging, harmonica/guitar-dominated blues style.
The Nick Moss Band was started as early as 1998, but gained serious international attention after the singer Michael Ledbetter became a member in 2011. Moss and Ledbetter were referred to as “Blues’ new radar pair” and became the big favorites of the blues community. Ledbetter was with a few years before he left the band, and in 2019 he suddenly and unexpectedly passed away. Nick Moss soon found his new mates in Dennis Gruenling, and they have been touring together for a few years now. Nick Moss has released a total of 15 albums, and in 2018 he and the band got a contract with Alligator Records, which has released their last three albums.
For this year’s Blues Music Awards, the band is nominated in seven categories: Band Of The Year, Album Of The Year (Get Your Back Into It!), Traditional Blues Album Of The Year (Get Your Back Into It!), Song Of The Year ( The Bait In The Snare), Traditional Blues Male Artist Of The Year (Nick Moss), Best Instrumentalist: Harmonica (Dennis Gruenling) and Best Instrumentalist: Bass (Rodrigo Mantovani).
Moss, Gruenling and the band have previously received five Blues Music Awards, including as “Band Of The Year” in 2020. In the same year, they also won in the categories “Song Of The Year “(Lucky Guy) and “Traditional Blues Album Of The Year” (Lucky Guy!). In 2019, Nick Moss was named “Traditional Blues Male Artist” and Dennis Gruenling received the award for “Instrumentalist: Harmonica”.
Notodden Blues festival has also announced that the Norwegian rock legends in TNT will join Deep Purple on the festival’s rock Friday. TNT is doing some exclusive concerts during the year under the name “40 Years of Thunder”, which marks 40 years since the release of the band’s first album, and 40 years since singer Tony Harnell joined.
Among previously announced artists are also Odd René Andersen, Vanessa Collier, Ana Popovic & the Fantastafunk Big Band Project, Paal Flaata, D.K. Harrell, Cedric Burnside, Earl Thomas & the Gospel Ambassadors feat. Sister Leola, Elles Bailey, Annika Chambers, Terrie Odabi, Lady A, Earl Thomas, Kaasin and Daniel Eriksen.
