Chris Beard

Chris Beard works as a guitarist, singer and songwriter whose roots connect to Rochester-area blues guitarist Joe Beard. Over the past two decades he has methodically worked the club circuit across the Northeast. Carrying the nickname "Prince of the Blues," he ranks among the idiom-expanding young lions of the 1990s and can be placed alongside Larry Garner, Tutu Jones and Michael Hill.

Beard first picked up the guitar at age five, absorbing the sounds of the blues artists his father invited to the house, among them Buddy Guy and Matt "Guitar" Murphy. He learned "Green Onions" by six and, at fifteen, began performing with a local classic rhythm & blues ensemble. He kept playing in regional bands and sitting in with his father's group through high school. After graduation he started leading his own band and writing original songs, taking cues from Albert King and Johnny "Guitar" Watson.

His debut album, Barwalkin', appeared on the London-based JSP Records as a twelve-track showcase of stylistic range and songwriting skill. Johnny Rawls produced the set while adding guitar, and Beard was backed by Hammond B-3 organist Brian Charette, former Johnny Copeland Band bassist Randy Lippincott and drummer Barry Harrison. The Nutmeg Horns—Bruce and Robert Feiner on saxophones plus Jim Hunt on trumpet—supplied additional weight to several tracks.