“I wanted to win really bad,” he said. “I kept going down to Memphis, so obviously I’ve wanted this for a long time. I practiced a lot, but I was still nervous leading up to the finals because of all the great musicians I was listening to for hours every day.
“Once I got to the finals, this wave of calm washed over me,” Waters continued. “I was finally there. I went from playing all the little hole in the wall bars to 1,000 people in the Orpheum Theatre. I don’t want to sound cocky but after listening to everybody else, I feel like I deserved to get in the finals. I was going to be upset if I didn’t get to the finals but winning was honestly icing on the cake.”
This isn’t the first major prize for Waters, who won the 2022Telluride Blues Challenge in Colorado.
“Winning at Telluride helped a lot,” he said. “Whenever you put that on an application, people are happy to see it. I’ve already got lot of nice opportunities from winning in Memphis. There were a lot of people there. There was something like 500 different blues societies from across the world there, so I got to play in front of a lot of people. After I won, I got invited to play different festivals.
“I’m doing Joe Bonamassa’s Legendary Blues Cruise Oct. 26 through Nov. 2,” Waters added. “I’ve never been on a cruise before. There will be a lot of famous folks there like Taj Mahal. Somebody in France wants to use my music for like a license deal. I don’t even know what a license deal is, so I feel like I’m at the step with my music where I need to get a music lawyer and talk over some things.”
Waters has Dayton shows at Moeller Brew Barn on Feb.10 and Trolley Stop on Feb. 16, and out-of-town gigs at Dick’s Den in Columbus on Feb. 8 and Mother Stewart’s in Springfield on Feb. 17.
More details
Watch Joe Waters perform his original song, “Blues Pilin’ Up”: youtube.com/watch?v=0vRFNcI8qvs
Artist info: www.joewaters.life
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