GRAMMY award-winning blues harmonica (口琴) player Sugar Blue made his first China performance in December 2017. Chinese audiences were amazed by his stormy playing of the harmonica.
Born on December 16, 1949 in New York, Sugar Blue is a great singer and composer. Sugar Blue's love for music comes from his mother. Till today, he still vividly remembers the first time his mother took him to the Apollo Theater to see Stevie Wonder, a music genius. The way Wonder played the harmonica onstage greatly impressed Sugar Blue and made him even more determined to spend his life working on his musical dream.
Sugar Blue's musical career has been quite smooth, in which New York City plays an integral part. At that time, the musical atmosphere in New York was very diverse, jazz, blues, pop, rock, etc.
He tries to pour everything that he feels about a song into it. His inspiration comes from people and the things that he comes across in his daily life, involving personal relationships, love, work, and daily struggles. In his eyes, you can write about the wonderful things that happen to you and you can also write about things that are not so good. He also draws inspiration from literature. Besides poetry, Zora Neale Hurston's book also influenced him a lot, which is in his eyes "poetry from the first word to the last."
Among the cities he has been to, Shanghai is his favorite." In Shanghai, there's rock and roll, jazz, hip-hop, traditional Chinese music. I had a wonderful experience." he said." The city itself is full of life and energy."
In his new album, Sugar Blue writes a song about Shanghai to show his special love of it. The song features well-known Chinese sheng musician's playing. Sugar Blue loves this song and highly values such cooperation with Chinese musicians.
