Ben Levin & Lil Jimmy Reed Band

Ben Levin is a 22 year old blues pianist/vocalist from Cincinnati, OH. Ben started playing professionally at age 11 with his father's band, the Heaters, and now plays 100+ gigs a year while attending the University of Cincinnati. Ben has played prestigious shows/events in the U.S. and around the world such as the Cincy Blues Fest, the LaRoquebrou (France) International Boogie and Blues Festival, the UK Boogie Fest, and the Beauforthuis festival in the Netherlands.

Leon Atkins, better known as Lil’ Jimmy Reed, is the real deal, as will be attested to by anyone who has been privileged to hear his stinging guitar work, gritty vocals and haunting harmonica. He is the last of the original Louisiana bluesmen. A tall charismatic figure, Lil’ Jimmy epitomises the classic Louisiana down-home blues tradition. Born in the late nineteen-thirties in a shot-gun shack in Hardwood, LA, a small cotton and sawmill town on the Mississippi River, Leon grew up near a club where every night he absorbed the wail of the blues from across the street. At six he had his own guitar, made from a cigar box, and by the time he was a teenager he was proficient on both guitar and harmonica, playing local clubs around Baton Rouge. Filling-in one night for blues star Jimmy Reed earned him the sobriquet Lil’ Jimmy Reed and started him on the long path to success.