Grady Champion - Tough Times Don't Last (2012)

Grady Champion is a young, blues singer and harmonica player, born October 10, that has been compared to Sonny Boy Williamson, and people can hear exactly why on his Shanachie debut Payin' for My Sins released August 24, 1999. The album includes a version of "Don't Start Me to Talkin'" that really shows Grady's high-energy singing and harmonica playing and an update of the traditional blues lament "Goin' Down Slow" with an AIDS parable -- a hard-bitten vignette of modern life. His revved-up, soulful vocalizing and the charm and insight he brings to his songwriting in numbers like the campy "My Rooster Is King" and the classic-sounding tale of infidelity "You Got Some Explaining to Do" (co-written by his producer Dennis Walker, who helped Robert Cray reach national fame) mark Grady as an important new talent.