Chicago guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter Ronnie Baker Brooks is one of the city’s—and the world’s—most undeniably talented and electrifying bluesmen. Ronnie was born into Chicago blues royalty as the son of legendary multiple GRAMMY Award nominee, Blues Hall of Famer, and longtime Alligator Records recording star Lonnie Brooks. He is among the few contemporary blues artists who learned his craft directly from many of the genre’s icons, including Albert Collins, B.B. King, Willie Dixon, Koko Taylor, and, most significantly, his father. “I’m blessed to have played with and learned from the best. I’m carrying them within me,” he says of all the legends he knew growing up and the journey he’s traveled.
Like all the great blues artists before him, Ronnie Baker Brooks has, through hard work, perseverance, and gritty determination—along with his prodigious, natural talent and charisma—earned his place in the upper echelons of the blues world. Blues Music Magazine praises, “In Ronnie Baker Brooks’s powerhouse hands, blues-rock never sounded so outrageous. Soul never sounded so delicious. And the blues never sounded so profound … one of today’s top live performers.”
Today, Ronnie Baker Brooks stands tall as a blisteringly innovative guitarist, an endlessly inventive songwriter, and an intensely soulful vocalist. His Ravinia debut promises to be a feast of electric and soulful blues music, honoring the legends, or as Brooks would say, channeling “the blues in my DNA!”
