Harper and Midwest Kind

Hailing from Britain yet raised in Australia, musician Peter Harper—performing simply as Harper—launched his U.S. tours in the mid-1990s with a singular approach to blues. By then he had already built a reputation as a songwriter and harmonica player across several prior albums. His addition of the aboriginal didgeridoo and tribal rhythms lent the material an uncommon global texture. While on one of those American tours he first enlisted Detroit-based backing musicians known as the Midwest Kind. After settling permanently in the United States in 2005, Harper adopted the Midwest Kind as his regular touring unit; the high-energy ensemble rapidly emerged as a prominent festival draw across the nation. The group’s first recorded appearance came on Harper’s 2010 album Stand Together, his third release for American blues label Blind Pig Records. The independently released Live at the Blues Museum arrived in 2012 and captured the vigorous onstage interplay between Harper and his band. They re-entered the studio for 2016’s Show Your Love, which entered Billboard’s blues chart at number nine.