Powerhouse of Blues: Delta Wires

The DELTA WIRES is a big, rockin’ harmonica and horns blues band from the Oakland/San Francisco Bay Area. They were Finalists in the Blues Foundation’s International Blues Challenge held in Memphis TN, and were voted “BEST LIVE BAND” Oakland/East Bay in Oakland Magazine’s annual readers’ poll, and also by the East Bay Express. The DELTA WIRES were inducted into the California Blues Hall of Fame in December, 2012.The DELTA WIRES have recorded 8 Albums,and just released in January their latest “if somebody told me…”, which is receiving rave reviews and national and international airplay. They have appeared at the Umbria Jazz Festival in Perugia Italy, the San Francisco Blues Festival, the Russian River Blues Festival, the Monterey Bay Blues Festival 8 times, headlined the Shasta Blues Society’s Redding Blues by the River Festival, have played Crescent City Blues Festival, Central Valley Blues Festival, Oakland Blues and Heritage Festival, Sacramento Jazz Festival and Jubilee, and many others. The DELTA WIRES have shared the stage with many noted artists including Van Morrison, John Lee Hooker, Freddie King, The Neville Bros, Dr. John, The Doobie Brothers, Buddy Guy and Junior Wells, John Mayall, Charlie Musselwhite, Boz Scaggs, Bad Company, The James Gang, Elvin Bishop, and numerous others…

A Brief History: Band Leader Ernie Pinata was a blues lover and collector. While in college, he created a band to perform for credit, an anthology of the evolution of the blues from it’s birth in field hollers to it’s electrified form in the big cities like Chicago.The band started by playing the clubs in Oakland – Esther’s Orbit Room and The Continental Club, and Mandrake’s and The New Orleans House in Berkeley. Around this time, Lowell Fulson sat-in with the DELTA WIRES at the New Orleans House in Berkeley and Ernie sat-in with the Freddie King Band at Mandrakes in Berkeley. This was followed by a performance with Buddy Guy and Junior Wells at Keystone Berkeley. The Delta Wires then began to open shows for these blues greats, and continued to grow as musicians and as a band. The DELTA WIRES name was derived from the image of a band playing a high-energy electrified musical style born in the field hollers of the Mississippi Delta which evolved into the blues and ultimately led to the migration to Chicago of the Delta bluesmen. What began as a college project and anthology of blues music from the Mississippi Delta to the South Side of Chicago, inevitably evolved into a band which has become known for its originality, versatility, and crisp, tight, exciting sound.