Tom Ball & Kenny Sultan

Although Tom Ball and Kenny Sultan fall within the acoustic blues revival, evoking the spirit of Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee, they consistently weave humorous motifs throughout their material, as heard in tracks such as “No Money, No Honey,” “Your Shoes Don’t Fit,” “Chicken a la Blues,” “Your Mind Is in the Gutter,” and “My Last Meal.” Sultan first encountered the idiom through his brother’s collection of T-Bone Walker and Muddy Waters albums, which had been acquired during a stay in Chicago and later brought back to California. The siblings became fixtures at Los Angeles’s storied Ash Grove, where they witnessed and personally encountered Lightnin’ Hopkins, John Lee Hooker, and Sonny Terry. While still a teenager, Sultan performed electric guitar with neighborhood rock groups before relocating to Santa Barbara to pursue a university degree in black studies.

Ball likewise frequented the Ash Grove yet crossed paths with Sultan only years afterward. Drawn to the folk revival of the 1960s, he began playing guitar at age eleven and, three years later, added harmonica, eventually joining Chicago-style blues ensembles. In 1978 he settled in Santa Barbara; soon afterward he learned of a local appearance featuring Sultan’s blues-and-ragtime guitar. At the time Ball was performing nearby with a rock band, so he sent his girlfriend—now his wife—to assess the musician. Her written impressions—“He’s got a great sense of humor, and he plays Gary Davis and Blind Blake, and he’s a great guitarist and likes to drink beer”—prompted an immediate meeting, and the two have collaborated continuously since 1979.

Their blend of acoustic blues, ragtime, and folk has been likened to combining assorted fruits into a single, flavorful beverage. The pair issued Who Drank My Beer? in 1983, then moved to the Flying Fish imprint for Bloodshot Eyes (1986), Too Much Fun (1990), and Filthy Rich (1993). Additional work has included studio contributions such as Levi’s 501 radio spots, while Ball supplied guitar and vocals for the Eddie Murphy film The Distinguished Gentlemen. They have also authored method books, among them Sultan’s Introduction to Blues Guitar and Acoustic Blues Guitar and Ball’s Blues Harmonica. In 1996 Ball issued the solo collection Guitar Music, spanning composers from Bach to Blind Blake; that same year the duo released Double Vision, extending their signature humorous approach to the blues.