Kenny Blues Boss Wayne

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 over 50 years.

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.

Award winning international piano blues artist on Stony Plain/True North records. His many awards include seven Maple Blues Awards for ‘piano player of the year’ and three outstanding keyboard awards from Living Blues magazine, in which he was hailed as “an artist bringing the piano back to the front ranks of contemporary Blues.” In 2006 he won a Juno Award (Canadian Grammy) for Best Blues Album and was nominated four times afterwards.  In 2017 he was inducted into the Boogie-Woogie Piano Hall of Fame while performing at the Cincy Blues Festival in Cincinnati, Ohio.  2021 Blues Artist of the year from Western Canadian Music Award and the Washington State Virtual Showdown in 2021.  2023 nominated for Pinetop Perkins ‘Piano Player of the Year’ from the Blues Music Award and won the award in 2024!  Last year, Kenny recently received the prestigious ‘Bobby Blue Bland’ Lifetime Achievement Award from the Jus Blues Foundation in Atlanta, Georgia.  And he also won the 2023 & 2024 Keyboard player of the year award from the Blues Blast Magazine. Now, nominated for Best Traditional Blues band and best recording from the Independent Blues Awards.  Most recently was awarded ‘Most Outstanding Musician (Keyboard) 2024 & 25 Living Blues Awards Critics’ Poll!  This year 2026, he won ‘Canadian Blues Keyboard of the Year’ award’.  Kenny now resides in Calgary, Alberta.

As Kenny's career seems to soar, the history of piano blues had been put aside until now.  But thanks to musicians like Kenny Blues Boss Wayne, it is now back in the forefront of Blues.  For more information about Kenny and his career, contact him personally or check out his music.