Bernie Pearl

A Los Angeles native, Bernie Pearl absorbed the blues directly from the players who regularly performed at the Ash Grove, the landmark folk and blues venue owned by his brother Ed, among them Lightnin' Hopkins and Mance Lipscomb. Formed in 1984, the Bernie Pearl Blues Band originally featured Robert Lucas on harmonica. Harvey "Harmonica Fats" Blackston took Lucas's place two years later, inaugurating a sustained and productive collaboration. The playful songs and magnetic stage presence of Fats are preserved on Live at Cafe Lido, a recording first conceived merely as a demo. Strong public interest in that album prompted Fats and Pearl to establish Bee Bump Records, whose inaugural release was I Had to Get Nasty. Pearl then persuaded Fats to perform as an acoustic duo, resulting in the 1995 album Two Heads Are Better. The next year they issued Blow Fat Daddy Blow!, a tribute to the memory of Fats's wife and civil rights activist Johnnie Tillman.