Miss Beth Kohnen is a singer and harmonica player with a traditional style, who passionately loves Chicago blues Her influences move between Walter Horton and the genuine James Cotton of the sixties Beth grew up in Portland, Maine and Pittsburgh, PA, but she moved to San Francisco Bay in the mid-seventies, where she studied music at Carnegie Mellon University and Syracuse University When she was almost a child Beth got out to see and listen to live blues and jazz at Pittsburgh’s Crawford’s Grill and other smaller less known clubs During her early years in the Bay of San Francisco, she used to play gospel with her harmonica in small churches but, a few years later, she was already playing blues with such great guitar players like Steve Freund and Rusty Zinn These two albums are a good example of the kind of blues she does In the first cd she is backed by The Knee Action Blues, and includes twelve good covers of classic songs coming from Walter Horton, Little Walter, Lonnie Johnson, Sunnyland Slim, Duke Ellington or Jimmy Reed among others All tracks let us see the amplified sound of her exceptional big fat tone, perfectly backed by John Graham on guitar, Willy Jordan Jr on drums and Thomas Wallace on bass The second cd Ease My Worried Mind includes eighteen excellent covers, only backed by the splendid Rusty Zinn’s guitar, which captures all the peaceful intensity of this great blower called Beth Kohnen