spacer

For many years Keith was one of Champaign-Urbana, Illinois most well-known musicians. Keith performed at concerts, clubs, festivals, live radio shows, recording studios, and private parties, and opened for legendary performers including Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Bobby Blue Bland, Dr. John, Delbert McClinton, Mighty Joe Young, Big Daddy Kinsey, and many others... Primarily a guitarist-singer, Keith plays other instruments, including dobro, harmonica, little bit of blues mandolin, and occasionally writes on piano.

spacer

As a solo performer, Keith was known for his renditions of vintage blues and folksy material, originals, and unique versions of classic cover tunes. Keith has performed with a wide variety of duo partners, sometimes as an accompanist and back in the day played with his electric power-trio blues band The Keith Harden Band, featuring Andy Burnett and Billy Galt.

Keith has twice won the C.V. Lloyd Music "Unsung Heroes Songwriting Contest" and is a prolific songwriter, though he hasn't yet released the vast majority of his material. He recorded and produced two studio CDs of his own music, "Cousins Of The Blues" 1993, and "The Early Years" 1998, with the Keith Harden Band and also released a KHB live at the Blind Pig CD.

Next Keith released the CD "there goes another day" 2000, These songs and the sound came from the exploration of alternate guitar tunings and harmonics. There is a personal and introspective touch to the lyrics and an all around more 'open' feeling as Keith reinvents his sound with percussionist Rocky Maffit.

Keith's first CD after his move east was "Precious Stone" 2001. It has 10 singer-songwriter original tunes and reflected the influences of his new home in upstate New York. After that he came out with a folky-country singer-songwriter CD of originals the song goes on 2004.

In between the singer-songwriter CDs Keith recorded and released four raw acoustic blues recordings. Acoustic Blues 2001, Illinois Blues 2002, Mostly Mississippi 2003 and The Bad Dog Blues Sessions [recorded live on WITR 89.7 in Rochester, NY] in 2005

In September of 2007 Keith moved to Nashville,TN and heres what he says about going between the songwriter world and the blues universe When I feel like Im running low on inspiration as a songwriter I pick up my guitar and play a blues tune or an old Mississippi John Hurt fingerpickin tune and its like sitting down in a comfortable chair after walking all day so I just play the blues until original songs start coming back into my life.

Home | Biography | more Bio | CDs | Reviews
Audio | Photos | Schedule | Venues

For info, schedules, or to book an appearance
contact Keith at: keithharden@netscape.net

Updated 10/08/2007
webmaster@bpcomp.com
gipoco.com is neither affiliated with the authors of this page nor responsible for its contents. This is a safe-cache copy of the original web site.