Hornby Island Blues Workshop



Kenny 'Blues Boss' Wayne - Piano/Vocals

 

Wayne was born in Spokane, Washington, and raised in New Orleans, Los Angeles and San Francisco.  He started playing piano at 13 and has been performing for five decades.

Over the years he has performed with and shared the stage with a great many of the world’s most influential blues and rock pioneers, including Jimmy Reed, Pinetop Perkins, Johnnie Johnson, Big Joe Duskin, Joe Louis Walker and Floyd Dixon, and as a guest performer with well-known rock and soul artists that have included Ike Turner, Sly and the Family Stone, Delaney and Bonnie and members of Santana and the Doobie Brothers. As a touring performer, he has played to knowledgeable and appreciative blues audiences on four continents and has been profiled by music journalists in Europe and North America.

His many awards include seven Maple Blues Awards (Toronto Blues Society) for ‘piano player of the year’ and three keyboard awards from Living Blues magazine. In 2006 he won a Juno Award for Best Blues Album and was nominated three times afterwards.  In 2017 he was inducted into the Boogie-Woogie Piano Hall of Fame and in 2021 Blues Artist of the year from Western Canadian Music Award and Washington State Virtual Showdown in 2021.  The Blues Boss has been on many covers of blues magazines worldwide including the most recently the Living Blues Magazine 2022 June/July issue.  Kenny now resides in beautiful Burlington, ON.

This is a return engagement for the Blues Boss to the Hornby Island Blues Workshop. He has been here in the past and was booked as recently as 2020 when COVID cancelled us out.

Major Class

Styles of Piano Blues


2023 Instructors