Tenor saxophonist Nancy Wright is the featured artist at Tuesday Night Blues at Harrah’s Lake Tahoe with the Buddy Emmer Blues Band.
Wright is nominated for a 2019 Blues Music Award for Best Horn player.
Wright has played with award-winning blues/roots artists, and the CD’s 10 special guests draw from Nancy’s musical network: Tommy Castro, Elvin Bishop, Joe Louis Walker, Frank Bey, Wee Willie Walker, Victor Wainright, Mike Schermer, Chris Cain, Terrie Odabi and Jim Pugh.
Though she’s called the Bay Area home for 30 years, Wright’s saxophone career got its start in Dayton, Ohio. She was a classically trained bassoon player majoring in Music, when the university theater department offered her the sax player role in a production of “Cabaret.” Arriving early for rehearsal one day, she found a group of musicians in the hallway jamming on the blues. They invited her to sit in. “The coin dropped that day,” says Wright, “and I discovered the world of improvisation.” Having trained on piano, violin, concert harp, flute and brass, as well as bassoon, Wright says it was also “a question of finally getting to the right instrument.”
While in Dayton, she discovered a mentor in Lonnie Mack, one of the founding fathers of blues-rock guitar, joining him regularly on stage. She also toured with Grammy-award winner John Lee Hooker, performing at Carnegie Hall and the Mississippi Delta Blues Festival, and performed with Stevie Ray Vaughn, Albert King and Albert Collins.