Learn to sing the blues with Andrew Duncanson class recording

Class recording link and handouts

Join Andrew Duncanson and Ronnie Shellist and learn more about how to develop your singing voice. In this class you’ll learn a killer song “Messin with the Kid” by the late great Junior Wells. The song will be presented in the key of A and we will use a D harmonica. Andrew is going to give you some great tips on approaching how to sing this song and of course you’ll be able to ask your own questions in this online workshop. Ronnie will be breaking down the main riff that is found at the intro and throughout the song. Typically the line is played on guitar but the harp player should know it and be able to play it as well. I’ll also discuss some strategies to improvising over this funky blues song.

For two decades, Andrew Duncanson has served as lead singer, songwriter, and guitarist for the Champaign, Illinois-based Kilborn Alley Blues Band—a group that quickly evolved from high school guys kicking around some blues to a prominent fixture on the national/international scene. They released five critically acclaimed albums, including four on friends Nick and Kate Moss’ Blue Bella Records label. The albums earned Blues Music Award nominations and Blues Blast Magazine nominations and wins, including the Sean Costello Rising Star Award in 2009 followed by Song of the Year for Better Off Now in 2010. The band self-released their most recent album The Tolono Tapes on Run It Back Records, which featured heavy hitters  like Henry Gray, Monster Mike Welch, Bob Corritore, and Corey Dennison sitting in with Andrew and the band in a hometown studio.

On any given gig night, the band can be found in European festivals like the Moulin Blues and Dark Season Blues Festival, as well as small London clubs. You’ll find them on big U.S. stages like the Portland Waterfront Blues Festival and Chicago Blues Festival, and in the low-key, local blues haunts of Champaign-Urbana, where they are beloved regulars. Andrew has toured with the Nick Moss Band and regularly collaborates with Gerry Hundt in the Chicago area. Most recently, he was a guest on the Legendary Rhythm and Blues Cruise with Mike Welch’s Connection.

Andrew’s influences include Bobby Womack, Bobby Bland, and great Chicago wailers like Luther Allison, Andrew “Big Voice” Odom, and Jimmy Johnson. And it shows. Writes Mark Uricheck in Living Blues, Andrew has “deep southern inflected pipes.” Critic Thomas J. Cullen III seconds the sentiment, saying “Duncanson’s raspy, rock-ribbed vocals combine Muddy’s earthiness with Big Joe Turner’s vivacity, and like those late legends, he never overstates his case.”