Bruton & Price Swingmasters Revue, featuring T-Bone Walker protégés Mike Price and Sumter Bruton, has been jumping the blues in the Texas Roadhouse style since 1993. The Swingmasters have delivered four internationally acclaimed CDs and performed before any number of jazz-festival and nightclub audiences. Centered upon Bruton’s guitar and Price’s piano, the Swingmasters Revue has provoked this response from pioneering R&B producer Jerry Wexler: “Some serious blues, here.”
Bruton & Price connected with T-Bone Walker — in different places, at different times — as if fated to wind up working together. Price’s introduction took place during his childhood in West Texas, where a show-business uncle often booked Walker into the local blues clubs. Bruton’s connection with Walker occurred a generation later at Fort Worth. Pooling their Walker influences at length into the present ensemble, Bruton & Price went so far as to name the band after one of Walker’s earlier record labels: Old Swing Master. And hence Bruton & Price Swingmasters Revue.
The Bruton & Price ensemble featured at the 2010 T-Bone Walker Blues Festival is their familiar quartet configuration — the Swingmasters range from duo to septet, depending upon circumstances — featuring longtime accompanists Larry Reynolds on drums and Jim Milan on bass.
The Bruton & Price Swingmaster Revue's festival performance is sponsored by
Don Henley
