- For the German rapper who uses Sonny Black as a pseudonym see Bushido (rapper), for the American mafioso see Dominick Napolitano.
Sonny Black is a leading acoustic guitarist based in the UK, who plays Blues, Rags and original compositions usually fingerstyle or slide.
Biography
At age 17 Sonny Black first heard "San Franscisco Bay Blues" by Jesse Fuller, which lead to his enduring love of blues music. At Les Cousins in Soho London Sonny leant from Roy Harper, Bert Jansch, Ralph McTell, The Incredible String Band, Davey Graham and many an American guitar picker. With Mike Cooper, a leading light of the emerging UK country blues scene in the late 1960s, he began playing acoustic and slide guitar with him on gigs around the UK and Europe. He made a couple of albums for Pye records, alongside such luminaries as Danny Thompson, Stephan Grossman, Mike Osborne and Alan Skidmore. Sonny then formed the first of the Sonny Black bands with Paul Swinton on harmonica, Dick Jones on bass and a variety of drummers, playing a hard Chicago type of blues and acting as the house-band at Dino's Blues Bar at the West End Centre in Aldershot (UK) playing with Eddie C Campbell, Lowell Fulson, Guitar Shorty, Carey Bell and others. The band came and went through various line-ups featuring, at different times: Sam Kelly (drums), Dan Smith (piano), George Pearson (bass), Alan Glenn (harmonica), Dino Coccia and Damon Sawyer (drums) and Bob Haddrell (organ/piano) - some of whom reformed as The Barcodes. In the 2000s Sonny was drawn back to playing just finger picking acoustic and National steel guitar. So now, with his good mate Chris Belshaw on bass, Sonny plays a variety of stuff from ragtime to country, from blues to jazz standards and just about anything else that takes his fancy! Sonny has done live sessions for BBC Radio 2's Paul Jones and Johnny Walker shows.
Selected discography
Sonny Black -
- The Corner Seat' (Free Spirit Records ) - 2005
- The Best of Days' (Free Spirit Records ) - 2007
