08/06/2025
🎼Phew! Keeping things lively with a headliner change and now featuring Tracy Nelson, Madison, Wisconsin native, backed by The Jimmys - that's how we roll at Waukesha Rotary Bluesfest.
Check Tracy Nelson out and we wish a speedy recovery to Marcia Ball -
Tracy Nelson was born and grew up in Madison, Wisconsin. There, she first learned about R&B music from nighttime listening to WLAC Radio from Nashville. In her teens, Nelson sang folk music in coffeehouses and with The Fuller-Wood Singers group, and was lead singer in The Fabulous Imitations band.
In 1965, Nelson recorded an acoustic blues album released on Prestige Records, Deep Are the Roots. It featured blues harmonica player Charlie Musselwhite as a member of her backup band. In Chicago, where the album was recorded, Nelson met and learned from artists including Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf and Otis Spann.
Nelson moved to San Francisco in 1966, where she became part of the music scene there. Her band, Mother Earth played the Fillmore Auditorium, sharing bills with the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix. It was during this period that Nelson wrote and first recorded her signature song Down So Low; released on the first Mother Earth album Living with the Animals, tracked in Nashville, with the vocal recorded in Memphis with Terry Manning. The song was later covered by Linda Ronstadt, Etta James, Maria Muldaur and
Cyndi Lauper.
In 1974, her duet with Willie Nelson, After the Fire is Gone; was nominated for a Grammy Award. After a lengthy hiatus from recording in the 1980s, Tracy Nelson released several albums on the independent Rounder Records label.
Since the early 2000s, Nelson has recorded for various independent record labels. She released her first in-concert album Live From Cell Block D in 2004. Other projects included a collaboration with blues-rock veterans Nick Gravenites, Harvey Mandel, Corky Siegel and Sam Lay. From 2016 into 2018, Nelson performed intermittently with Missouri band the Bel Airs.
Tracy Nelson has emerged from a lengthy recording hiatus with the album of a lifetime, a musical self-portrait spanning her entire career. Life Don’t Miss Nobody (BMG; released in 2023) is a 13 track collection that stretches back to her start as a guitar-picking Wisconsin teen playing coffeehouses through an unparalleled career.
Tracy Nelson brings her unique musical stylings to Waukesha Rotary BluesFest with the backing of Wisconsin favorites, The Jimmys. An award-winning festival favorite. The Jimmys feature band leader Jimmy Voegeli phenomenal Hammond B-3 keyboardist, singer and songwriter; an experienced killer rhythm section steeped in blues with Perry Weber on guitar, Chris Sandoval on drums and John Wartenwieler on bass and the icing on the cake is the best horn section in the Midwest, Pete Ross on saxophone, Mike Boman on trumpet and Joe Goltz on trombone. It doesn’t get any better than this, The Jimmys deliver!
🎟That was a long one - wow! So much talent packing the stage at this year's festival - make sure you have a seat - https://www.waukeshabluesfest.com/
