Well-known blues harp player, Wallace Coleman will perform at the Kent State University at Tuscarawas on Nov. 13 at 7 p.m. in the Performing Arts Center. The performance is co-sponsored by AquaBlue, Inc.
This is a cabaret performance where the audience sits on the stage with the performers. Dinner is included in the $45 ticket price. Tickets can be purchased at the Performing Arts Center box office, online at www.kent.edu/tusc/pac or by calling 330-308-6400. The box office is open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Free parking is available for all shows.
A self-taught musician, Coleman played the harmonica on his breaks at work. One day a co-worker brought his cousin to the jobsite to hear Coleman play. That meeting sparked a year-long pairing with Cleveland’s Guitar Slim at the Cascade Lounge, a real Blues juke joint setting in Cleveland.
The Cascade Lounge is where Coleman caught the ear of Robert Jr. Lockwood, who had come to hear him play. Lockwood liked what he heard and asked Coleman to join his band. Coleman had a while longer to work in order to retire from his full-time job at Hough Bakeries. At the age of 51, Coleman joined Lockwood’s band, marking the beginning of his professional music career. Soon, he was traveling throughout the United State, Canada and overseas playing major blues festivals and clubs. In1997, Coleman left Lockwood’s band to become a full time bandleader.
Coleman’s first CD was “Wallace Coleman” on Fishhead Records, and he has produced four CDs on his Ella Mae Music label - “Stretch My Money,” “Live At Joe’s,” “The Bad Weather Blues” and “Blues in the Wind, Remembering Robert Jr. Lockwood,” all critically acclaimed in the U.S. and abroad.