Tom Ball - harmonica, guitar, vocalist, novelist - Tom Ball

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TOM'S SECOND NOVEL HAS JUST BEEN PUBLISHED!
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PODCAST INTERVIEW HAPPY HOUR HARMONICA BROADCAST (2022)

PODCAST INTERVIEW WITH TOM IN THE FRETBOARD JOURNAL (2021)

INTERVIEW WITH TOM ABOUT THE DUO ON COUNTRYBLUES.COM (2019)

photo by Kimberly Clarke Citro

T O M B A L L

Born in Los Angeles on Sonny Terry's birthday (October 24,) Tom began playing guitar at the age of eleven and took up harmonica two years later. At age 16, as a member of the Yerba Buena Blues Band, he was playing Sunset Strip nightclubs and Love-Ins and opening for the likes of the Grateful Dead, the Turtles, Iron Butterfly and Steve Miller. He left the country for most of the '70s, then returned and teamed up with guitarist Kenny Sultan in 1979 -- a partnership that still flourishes today after 45 years, and has resulted in eight duo CDs (most with Flying Fish/Rounder,) and literally thousands of concerts and festivals all over the world.

In addition to working with Kenny, Tom has played on nearly three hundred CDs, performed and sung on countless film soundtracks, TV shows and commercials, recorded five solo guitar CDs, written five instructional books and authored a couple of novels.

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Some of Tom's studio projects include playing harmonica with Jimmy Buffett's Coral Reefer Band on the soundtrack to the film "Hoot," and with Kenny Loggins on his latest four CDs, "All Join In," "How About Now," "Blue Sky Riders - Finally Home" and "Why Not?" It's not hard to see why Tom has been on the cover of both American Harmonica Newsmagazine and Harmonica World, why Blues Revue called his playing "stupendous," and why Sound Choice magazine wrote, "The best acoustic blues act going, bar none!" Meanwhile he has carved out a secondary career as a solo guitarist with five CDs, and "kills time" writing both music books and fiction. Fretboard Journal recently wrote, "Not fair. Tom Ball is not only one of the world's best harmonica players, he's also an incredible guitarist."

Currently Tom resides in Santa Barbara with his artist wife Laurie, two antique cats and 1000s of 78 RPM records. His daughter Shay is an ex-model, renowned singer and music teacher. For more info and a complete discography, please feel free to peruse this website by clicking the links. And if you'd like to get ahold of Tom personally, you can write or Email: