J. C. SMITH
Actor/ Guitarist/ Vocalist, winner of the 2024 Bay Area Black Music Awards “Male Blues Preformer of the year”, “ECEM 2017 Male artist 0f the year”, 2024 BAY AREA JAZZ AND BLUES ARTIST (LIFE TIME ACHIEVMEVMENT AWARD) 2023 STATE OF CALIFORNIA LEGACY AWARD FROM THE STATE LEGISLATION, Metro Newspapers Best Of Silicon Valley “Best Original/local Band”, and 2006 Bay Area Blues Society West Coast Blues Band of the Year award winner is originally from the San Francisco Bay Area. He is an outstanding performer noted for his energy and charisma. Prior to playing guitar, he was the drummer for the Back to Back Blues Band. In 2000, he emerged from behind his drums, armed with a Gibson 335. J. C. attacks the Blues as if he is being guided by the masters like T-Bone Walker, Albert King, and Johnnie Guitar Watson. The J. C. Smith Band’s current release “Defining Cool” is by far the best recording to date. Listed for the 52nd Grammy Awards for “Best Contemporary Blues CD,” it entered the Living Blues Radio Charts at #16 and was a “Pick to Click” on XM Radio. After 20 weeks on the Roots Report, the CD climbed the charts as high as #25 nationally. In 2004, Smith released “That’s What I’m Talk’n ‘Bout,” co-produced by Grammy Award Nominee Joanna Connor. This CD shows masterful songwriting, outstanding arrangements, and traditional quality. It features a host of Chicago players including Willie “Big Eyes” Smith, who worked with the Muddy Waters Band for twenty years. 2001 marked the release of Smith’s first effort “Midnight Creeper” which brought him international attention. Smith has toured throughout the United States, Eastern Europe, Mexico,South America,and Russia,to sell out crowds. Smith has work with and shared the stage with notable artist such as Hubert Sumlin, B,B, King, Buddy Guy, Buddy Miles, Son Seals Willie Bigeyes Smith, Pinetop Perkins and many more. He is also known as radio personality Johnnie Cozmik on KKUP F.M. J. C. feels that his goal in life is “To keep the Blues alive and take the message to the people.”

KENNY ‘BLUES BOSS’ WAYNE – Piano/Vocals
Wayne was born in Spokane, Washington, and raised in New Orleans, Los Angeles, and San
Francisco. He started playing piano at 13 and has been performing for over 50 years.
Over the years he has performed with and shared the stage with a great many of the world’s most
influential blues and rock pioneers, including Jimmy Reed, Pinetop Perkins, Johnnie Johnson,
Big Joe Duskin, Joe Louis Walker, and Floyd Dixon, and as a guest performer with well-
known rock and soul artists that have included Ike Turner, Sly and the Family Stone, Delaney
and Bonnie and members of Santana and the Doobie Brothers. As a touring performer, he has
played to knowledgeable and appreciative blues audiences on four continents and has been
profiled by music journalists in Europe and North America.

Award winning international piano blues artist on Stony Plain/True North records. His many
awards include seven Maple Blues Awards for ‘piano player of the year’ and three outstanding
keyboard awards from Living Blues magazine, in which he was hailed as “an artist bringing the
piano back to the front ranks of contemporary Blues.” In 2006 he won a Juno Award (Canadian
Grammy) for Best Blues Album and was nominated four times afterwards. In 2017 he was
inducted into the Boogie-Woogie Piano Hall of Fame while performing at the Cincy Blues Festival
in Cincinnati, Ohio. 2021 Blues Artist of the year from Western Canadian Music Award and the
Washington State Virtual Showdown in 2021. 2023 nominated for Pinetop Perkins ‘Piano Player
of the Year’ from the Blues Music Award and won the award in 2024! Last year, Kenny recently
received the prestigious ‘Bobby Blue Bland’ Lifetime Achievement Award from the Jus Blues
Foundation in Atlanta, Georgia. And he also won the 2023 & 2024 Keyboard player of the year
award from the Blues Blast Magazine. Now, nominated for Best Traditional Blues band and best
recording from the Independent Blues Awards. Most recently was awarded ‘Most Outstanding
Musician (Keyboard) 2024 & 25 Living Blues Awards Critics’ Poll! This year 2026, he won
‘Canadian Blues Keyboard of the Year’ award’. Kenny now resides in Calgary, Alberta.