Happy Birthday, Marcia Ball!
John Dunlop
Blues singer and pianist Marcia Ball was born on March 20, 1949, in Orange, Texas, and was raised in Vinton, Louisiana. Ball was born into a musical family and started piano lessons when she started school, showing an early interest in the New Orleans style piano playing of Fats Domino, Professor Longhair, and James Booker. Irma Thomas, the “Soul Queen of New Orleans” was Ball’s chief vocal inspiration. While at Louisiana State University in the 1960s, Ball played in a band called Gum, and in 1970, she started a progressive country band called Freda and the Firedogs in Austin, Texas, ultimately beginning her solo career in 1974.
Ball's piano style includes elements of zydeco, swamp blues, Louisiana blues, and boogie woogie. She began her recording career as a solo artist in the 1980s, and her 1998 album, Sing It!, which featured vocalists Irma Thomas and Tracy Nelson, was nominated for a Grammy Award and a Blues Music Award (BMA) for "Best Contemporary Blues Album." Ball received the 1998 Blues Music Award for "Contemporary Female Vocalist of the Year" and "Best Blues Instrumentalist-Keyboards." She was awarded "Contemporary Blues Album of the Year" for her albums Presumed Innocent (2002) and So Many Rivers (2004). The same year she also won "Contemporary Blues Artist of the Year-Female." She won the "Best Blues Instrumentalist-Keyboards" again in 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2009. The BMA for Keyboards has since been renamed the Pinetop Perkins Piano Player Award and Ball has won it in 2012, 2015, and 2019. Her 2003 release, So Many Rivers, was nominated for a Grammy as were Live! Down The Road (2005) and Peace, Love & BBQ (2008). She was inducted into the Austin Music Hall of Fame in 2018.
On October 25, 2018, Ball was inducted into the Austin City Limits Hall of Fame, where she first appeared during their inaugural season in 1976. She continues to play at nightclubs, particularly in Austin and New Orleans, and performs at music festivals in North America and overseas. Happy birthday to an incredible musician!
Photo by: Lilly M