SATURDAY JUNE 06, 2026 CHICAGO BLUES FESTIVAL AT MILLENNIUM PARK

Jay Pritzker Pavilion

7:45-9 p.m. 75 Years of Billy Branch

Billy Branch and the Sons of Blues with Kenny Nealand and Ronnie Baker Brooks

As a harmonica player, singer and bandleader, Billy Branch has been an essential part of the Chicago blues community for decades. And as a devoted educator, he has been a crucial messenger of the music to audiences and students around the world. He picked up a harmonica at the age of 10 and immersed himself in the city’s blues scene during the early 1970s. His reputation exploded after joining Willie Dixon’s band in 1975. A few years later he formed the Sons of Blues and the group has recorded such celebrated albums as Where’s My Money? (1984), Roots And Branches – The Songs Of Little Walter (2019) and The Blues Is My Biography (2025). Along with serving as a direct link to key players in blues history, he continues to pass that knowledge along through his involvement with the Blues In The Schools Program. Guitarist Kenny Neal has been a longtime colleague of Branch and they collaborated on the 2003 album Easy Meeting. Born in New Orleans, Neal has become a global ambassador of the Louisiana swamp blues sound.

Longtime friend, Ronnie Baker Brooks, has carried on the legacy of such icons as his father Lonnie Brooks and blended it with soul and rock on such albums as Blues In My DNA from 2024. Both of them share Branch’s attitude, which he expressed in a recent interview with Blues Blast Magazine: “I keep a foot in the past, with an eye to the future. That kind of sums up my approach.” [AC]