The Philadelphia Blues Messengers grew out of monthly blues jams at The Mermaid Inn in Northwest Philly, and a serendipitous encounter in Center City for blues harpist Larry Hambrecht.  Before dropping in on the Mermaid blues jams, Larry was a part of the blues scene in New York City's East Village during the '70's, where he played with Louisiana Red, Lefty Diz, Bill Dicey, Sugar Blue and Brent Rosato.  While Larry was eating a customary lunch at Ludwig's Garden in Center City, Paul Olivier mentioned that he needed a band.  In response, Larry said he had a great blues band, even though at the time he only dreamed of one. With necessity breeding invention, Larry turned to his Mermaid Inn jam buddies for a pickup blues band.  It is a tribute to the abundance and depth of musicianship in Philadelphia that he came up with a pickup band of veterans from various genres that would be the envy of any city anywhere.  His first recruit was vocalist, songwriter and guitarist Mike Albrecht, whose backgound includes The Blues Astronauts, an '80s blues, punk-funk, world music band, and who forms the nucleus of the Philadelphia Ceili Band along with is wife, Irish fiddler Kitty Kelly.  From the Ceili Band, Mike recruited mandolin, bombarde and bass player Tom Gittelman, who has played bass with the Chieftians, and drummer-singer-songwriter Pete Currie, a veteran of several Philly rock bands - Disband, The Eccentrics, The Djangos, No Turn on Red, and others.  To round out the core group with some deep southern spice, Larry and Mike turned to fellow Mermaid Inn jammer David Dogget who grew up in North Mississippi, Louisiana, and Tennesse playing sax and steel guitar in rockabilly, blues, country, and country-rock groups.  David has recently played around Philly with Fred Stucky's neo-rockabilly/alt-country group Gas Money and Pete Marshall's alt-country group The Broken Prayers.  

No sooner had this core group begun to churn out their own brand of electric blues and blues-flavored originals, than Larry had another encounter in Center City, this time with a jazz saxophonist on the street at Broad and Walnut, who turned out to be Philly free jazz legend Byard Lancaster (aka Pennsylvania's First Jazz Lobbyist).  Byard led the group to collaborations with percussionist and didgeridoo player Harold E. Smith, Southeast Philadelphia R&B belter Lisa Chavous, blues-gospel screamer Rev. Joe Craddock, and another Philly sax legend, Odean Pope, who played with Max Roach, and recently has an international jazz hit album, Locked and Loaded, with his Saxophone Choir.  Philly sax journeyman Elliot Levin (also of the Saxophone Choir) and Don Williams have also become part of the sax rotation with the Blues Messengers. The boiling pot of diversity, that is uniquely Philadelphian, has spawned a repertoire steaming with classic electric blues, R&B, and jazz-funk that wanders into avant garde territory.  And to bring their music full circle, for their first album, "Blues for Sale," the Blues Messengers pulled in South African drummer and singer Mogauwane Mahloele to expand into Afro and world music. 

At the initiative of sultry soul songstress, Lisa Chavous, The Messengers have enlisted the talents of additional collaborations, Billy Holloman, "King James" Levy, Monnette Sudler, Kenneth Taylor, and Marc Johnson to create their newest CD, "Blues Addiction".

In addition to local alternative music clubs, The Philadelphia Blues Messengers have performed with a varying lineup of their collaborators at George Manney's Brotherly Love All-Star Show at World Cafe Live, The West Oak Jazz & Arts Festival, Tranestop Festival, and Philly's top blues club, Warmdaddy's.  The CD "Blues for Sale", was a featured "new Blues" CD on WXPN on Johnny Meister's Blues Show, and has been receiving airplay on WMKV in Cincinnati, OH and WURD jazz in Philadelphia, and stations in Canada and France.

One race - human; one people, one world, one blues.