Solo Delta Blues Performer Extraordinaire
Hailing from the unlikely environs of South Toledo, Ohio, Dooley Wilson is among a rare breed of latter-day purveyors of “hard” Mississippi / Louisiana – styled blues. With an approach that is steeped in the tradition of his forebears, Wilson offers a combination of bottleneck/slide guitar virtuosity with a renegade intensity that is more at home in a seedy rock club than at a typical “blues society” venue.
In the mid-nineties, Wilson co-fronted the indie-blues outfit, Henry & June, with whom he released the single, “Goin’ Back To Memphis”. The song has since been made famous by the White Stripes, who have included it in their live show since 1998.
In Autumn of 2001, Wilson migrated to New Orleans, Louisiana, where he spent a formative year busking on the streets of the French Quarter, pitted amongst a peer group of today’s most formidable torch-bearers of traditional American Blues.
2003 saw Wilson back home in his native Toledo, where he re-aligned his talents with former Henry & June co-conspirator, Jimmy Danger, to form the powerhouse blues-rock trio, Boogaloosa Prayer. Additionally, as a soloist, Wilson became a finalist in the 2004 International Blues Challenge in Memphis, Tennessee. He was the first-ever contestant from Toledo’s Black Swamp Blues Society to earn such a distinction.
Wilson has earned a modicum of international recognition touring Europe twice (2004 & 2005) as a support act for Detroit’s Soledad Brothers, and has been enthusiastically received by rock fans up and down the U.K., France, Spain, Portugal, and The Netherlands.
In September 2005 Wilson returned to the U.K to play a co-headline tour alongside The High Plane Drifters, a double sided split 7” E.P was released in conjunction with this tour on the newly founded Don’t Tell Clare record label.
Presently, Dooley Wilson resides in South Toledo, where he is at work on a number of projects, bringing his signature treatment of “hard” blues to venues around the Northwest Ohio/ Southeast Michigan (Detroit) area in a variety of contexts.
www.myspace.com/boogaloosaprayer
www.myspace.com/drunkenmonkeyrecords
Thanks to Neil Douglas for the video