Corey Harris

Corey Harris (born February 21, 1969 in Denver, Colorado, United States) is an American blues and reggae musician, currently residing in Charlottesville, Virginia. Along with Keb’ Mo’ and Alvin Youngblood Hart, he raised the flag of acoustic guitar blues in the mid-1990s. He was featured on the 2003 PBS television mini-series, The Blues, in an episode directed by Martin Scorsese.

Harris was born and raised near Denver, Colorado. He graduated from Bates College in Lewiston, Maine with a bachelor’s degree in 1991, and was awarded an honorary doctorate in 2007. Harris received a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship for language studies in Cameroon in his early twenties, before taking a teaching post in Napoleonville, Louisiana under the Teach For America program. His debut solo album Between Midnight and Day(1995) was produced by Grammy nominee/composer/producer Larry Hoffman, who discovered him in 1994 in Helena, Arkansas. The record included covers of Sleepy John Estes, Fred McDowell, Charlie Patton, Muddy Waters, and Booker White. His second recording with Hoffman, Fish Ain’t Bitin’, was the recipient of the 1997 W.C. Handy Award for Best Acoustic Blues Album of the Year. Recorded in New Orleans, it featured Harris’ original songs, vocal, and guitar backed on certain tracks by a trio of tuba and two trombones arranged by producer Hoffman. In 2002, Harris collaborated with Ali Farka Toure on his album Mississippi to Mali, fusing blues and Toure’s music from northern Mali. In 2003, he contributed to the Northern Bluesrelease Johnny’s Blues: A Tribute To Johnny Cash.

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