Lozelle Jennings & Danny Norton
Enjoy this video of Lozelle Jennings & Danny Norton performing Jambalaya!
About Richard "Lozelle" Jennings
Though he was born in San Antonio, Texas, Lozelle Jennings considers himself a citizen of the world—with forty states and twelve countries under his belt. Jennings was born in 1949, to Charles, an Air Force sergeant and Eva, his German war-bride. He began playing accordion at age eight, while his father was again stationed in Germany, then began playing harmonica in 1962 after living in Montgomery, Alabama for three years. After much listening and practice, he first worked as a harp player and singer, fronting bands in Indiana, Pennsylvania—and Alabama when he returned there in 1983. From 1979 on, Jennings played both Chicago-style blues with “The Dynatones” or “White Boy and the MoJo Dealers” and Country-style blues with Yank Rachell, Albert Macon & Robert Thomas, Precious Bryant, Little Jimmy Reed, Lefty Bates and others. His background includes work as an opening act for performers like Chubby Checker, Mark Hodgson, R.J. Mishu, and Curtis Salgado. He performed at the first Daytona Beach Blues Festival fronting the MoJo Dealers out of Tuskegee, Alabama. He was solo guest artist with the Tuskegee University Jazz Band when they won the Andre Ford Jazz Competition. After that, Jennings relocated to southern California, where he spent 20 years of what he calls “hard time in the bar and dive scene.” Much of his recent songwriting has come from that time.
His two CDs of original blues and roots include “Loz Bluz” with Dr. Lozelle’s Blues Contenders (2000) and “Racontourism” with The Left Coast MoJo Dealers (2007).
One interesting thing that draws Jennings’ audiences is an unusual format. Lozelle plays accordion, harmonica, and brings a strong vocal presentation to the mix. Snooky Pryor, the great blues harpman, once said he just didn’t see how Jennings could play bass with the left hand, rhythm with the right, plus play the lead through a racked harmonica. “I don’t know,” Jennings says, “I guess it’s a little like juggling cats—if you don’t feel the flow, all you get is scratches, bites, and a lot of yowling.”
Lozelle Jennings has recently relocated to Seal Rock, Oregon. He says, “Having pulled up stakes about fifty times, I’m pretty good at relocating and getting along with folks. But I feel a special family bond to Oregon. My great-great grandmother was married to John Henry Clay Jennings, of Medford, New Jersey. Our family tradition is that when her husband died in a gruesome mill accident shortly after Lincoln’s assassination, she found her way to what would become Medford, Oregon, and remarried, this time to the man who would become the first Governor. So in a way part of my family may be already here.”
Jennings currently works as a single, in a duo with Henry Cooper, and as frontman and bandleader of The Purple Cats.
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