Ghost Town Blues Band

The Memphis-based Ghost Town Blues Band brand themselves "not your grandpa's blues band" to signal their willingness to fuse core blues elements with funk, soul, New Orleans jazz, rock jams, and hip-hop. That hybrid approach, paired with an energetic concert presence, allowed the six-piece outfit to cultivate an audience across the 2010s and to accelerate its rise late in the decade when the 2018 release Backstage Pass and its 2019 follow-up Shine both reached the higher tiers of Billboard's Blues chart.

Guitarist and vocalist Matt Isbell leads the group, which also showcases lead guitar work from his former high-school classmate Taylor Orr. The collective first surfaced in 2008 after Isbell, who had been working steadily as a rock guitarist, decided to assemble a blues-rooted ensemble capable of venturing beyond conventional boundaries. Trombonist Suavo Jones was among the earliest recruits, bringing a pronounced nod to the Big Easy. Although personnel rotated frequently in subsequent years, Isbell succeeded in recruiting Orr during the latter half of the 2010s, at which point the rhythm section locked into place with drummer Andrew McNeill, bassist Matt Karner, and organist Cedric Taylor.

This configuration differed from the one heard on the band's 2009 self-titled debut and its 2012 successor Dark Horse, yet the ensemble began to cohere on 2014's Hard Row to Hoe. That record, together with stage presentations that opened with the musicians marching in as a second-line horn section, raised the group's visibility. Momentum continued to build, culminating in the live album Backstage Pass, which climbed to number four on Billboard's Blues chart in 2018. The following year the sextet expanded to include saxophonist Kevin Houston and issued the studio album Shine, which entered the same Billboard chart at number one upon its 2019 release.