James Armstrong

California-based blues guitarist, songwriter, and singer James Armstrong may stand small in physical stature, yet his guitar playing, original lyrical themes, and singing persuade even the most hardened blues fans of his brilliance. Music clearly runs through his veins, as he is the son of a jazz guitar-playing father and a blues-singing mother. Raised in the Los Angeles area, he started his first group while still in junior high school. He has named Jimi Hendrix, Robert Cray, Albert Collins, Albert King, and Eric Clapton among the artists who shaped his growth. Before relocating north to the San Francisco Bay Area, his Los Angeles years featured notable appearances backing Collins, Big Joe Turner, and Los Angeles veteran Smokey Wilson.

Following the 1995 release of the critically acclaimed Sleeping with a Stranger on the San Francisco-based Hightone label, a violent incident abruptly halted Armstrong’s rising touring schedule. In April 1997 a robber invaded his home and stabbed him so severely that he nearly died. After weeks of hospitalization and months of rehabilitation, he recovered and resumed his path. Throughout the late ’90s and into the new century he returned to the blues festival circuit with renewed energy, delivering a standout set at the Pocono Blues Festival in Pennsylvania. Hightone issued Dark Night in 1999, featuring lead guitar contributions from Joe Louis Walker and Doug MacLeod on two tracks. By spring 2000 Armstrong returned to the studio for Got It Goin’ On, an album highlighting his delicate guitar stylings and soulful singing with support from Joe Louis Walker’s rhythm section and keyboard appearances on two tracks by Jimmy Pugh of the Robert Cray Band.

The stabbing left Armstrong unable to move his fingers along the guitar neck with the speed he once possessed. He came to understand that greater speed does not guarantee stronger music and that effective blues depends above all on feeling, a principle he associates with the slow, powerful, methodical approach of Albert King. The track “2 Sides” from Got It Goin’ On appeared in the film Speechless starring Michael Keaton, while numerous other originals confirm his stature as a songwriter who continues to explore previously uncharted lyrical territory. After a decade-long recording hiatus following Got It Goin’ On, he resurfaced in 2011 with Blues at the Border on Catfood Records. Three years later he released Guitar Angels, which was followed in 2017 by Blues Been Good to Me.