From an early age onward, blues artist Chris Whynaught split his energies between music and baseball. He first sang in southern gospel choirs as a boy and joined the band Soul Syndicate at seventeen, all while playing minor league baseball and drawing scouting interest from the Chicago Cubs and the Los Angeles Dodgers. Listening to Bobby “Blue” Bland’s “In Poverty” on the radio sparked an epiphany that led him to abandon the diamond for a life in music.
A succession of band positions followed in the R&B, jazz, funk, and rock fields. Time spent in Premium Stuff brought an invitation to tour with Jimmy Witherspoon, whose mentorship left a lasting mark on Whynaught’s emerging sound. Roughly ten years later, Tough Times signed with United Artists and secured several high-profile gigs. He subsequently performed with Mike Morgan and the Crawl; their 1996 album Looky Here moved more than 100,000 copies and gave him the means to launch a solo career.
His debut album, Heard It on the Radio, draws on that broad history and reveals the influence of classic blues figures such as Brook Benton and Bobby Blue Bland. The title itself refers to the radio moment when “In Poverty” convinced him to devote himself fully to music. Backed by the session group the Reasons Why, the record offered songs about love and hardship that carried a strong R&B flavor while remaining grounded in the blues.
