John Németh

Growing up in the early 1990s in the muddy potato fields of Boise, Idaho, John Nemeth was drawn to the hard-edged hip-hop sound and rock bands of the day. Boise, Idaho is not usually thought of as a home of the blues, but it was where Nemeth grew up, the youngest son of a miner who fled the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and married a local girl. His mother took him to concerts when he was two, his third-grade teacher taught him to sing, and his elder siblings were into rock and country. As a teen, he played in a band called Fat John and the 3 Slims with his friend, Tom Moore, who sat behind him in algebra class. That band is still legendary in the Boise area. Moore introduced him to the Junior Wells and Buddy Guy classic, “Hoodoo Man Blues.“ “That was it,” Nemeth said. “I started singing along with him. I was 14.”

In a 2022 interview with Robin Caudell, Nemeth explained how he found the blues after Moore gave him “the greatest mixtape of all time.” “He started with Charley Patton and moved into Robert Johnson, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Blind Willie McTell, Blind Boy Fuller, BB King, Albert Collins, and Lightning Hopkins,” he said. “It was fantastic. I really loved it.”

By 2000, Nemeth was supplying backup to Junior Watson and fronting his own band, The Jacks. He self-published two albums and in 2004 relocated to the San Francisco Bay area. He signed a contract with Blind Pig Records and his national debut album, Magic Touch, in 2007, caused Living Blues Magazine to say that it gave hope “that the blues will survive.” In 2008, he was recruited by Elvin Bishop to perform and contribute vocal tracks to Bishop’s Grammy-nominated album, The Blues Roll On.

Nemeth released two more albums with Blind Pig, and both hit No. 6 on the Billboard Blues Chart. He began his long string of Blues Music Award nominations, with 20 at last count. He won two Blues Blast Music Awards: Best New Artist Debut Recording and the Sean Costello Rising Star Award. He followed up with two independently released albums in 2012, Blues Live and Soul Live. At Electraphonic Studio, along with producer Scott Bomar and his classic Memphis Soul band, the Bo-Keys, Nemeth created an album of revisited Soul classics, Memphis Grease, which debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard Blues Chart. He won the 2014 BMA for Best Soul Blues Male Artist and Memphis Grease won Best Soul Blues Album in 2015.

In 2017, Nemeth released Feelin’ Freaky on his own Memphis Grease label. The album crushed all barriers of style and genre with all original songs that defied pigeon-holing and drew from his strong influence in blues and R & B, as well as contemporary sounds in hip-hop and rock and roll. In 2019, he and his band of young players, The Blue Dreamers, with guitar phenom John Hay, drummer Danny Banks and bass player Matt Wilson, released Nemeth’s 10th album, 2020’s Stronger Than Strong. Again, he showed his ability to blend retro and modern blues and soul into compelling music that is simultaneously old and new.

In 2021, Nemeth was nominated for the B.B. King Entertainer of the Year Award by the Blues Music Association and in 2023, he won the ”Instrumentalist – Harmonica” category at the Blues Music Awards. May Be the Last Time was also named “Traditional Blues Album of the Year.”

John Nemeth has said that his career and life has been a wild trip and he’s having a good time. You can bet the blues that you will, too.