Longtime Pittsburgh singer Billy Price nominated for 2 Blues Music Awards

As a soul singer, Billy Price has few peers. The longtime Pittsburgh resident, who now lives in Baltimore, is considered not only a superb vocalist, but a torchbearer for the genre through his incandescent performances and encyclopedic knowledge of soul music.

It’s not lost on him that some of his greatest successes have come in another form: the blues.

Price recently earned nominations for best soul blues male artist and soul blues album for “Dog Eat Dog” from the Memphis-based Blues Music Awards. It’s the second year in a row Price has been nominated for soul blues album, with his “Reckoning” being honored in 2018. He won the same award in 2016 for “This Time for Real,’ his collaboration with the late soul singer Otis Clay.

The “Dog Eat Dog” album was released in August.

“I’m a little out of the mainstream,” Price says. “I think I’m not a typical blues artist. I will say that on ‘Dog Eat Dog,’ my producer and I kind of consciously targeted that market. So there’s more blues on ‘Dog Eat Dog’ than some of my other albums.”

That producer — Kid Andersen at Greaseland Studios in San Jose, Calif. — has not only challenged Price to produce some of his best recorded performances, but subtly shifted the vocalist’s sound. And that has led Price, in collaboration with his longtime keyboardist Jimmy Britton, to write different types of songs.

Greaseland Studios’ impact on Price is tangible. Musicians such as Tommy Castro, Finis Tasby and Nick Moss have recorded at the San Jose venue, and the Norweigian-born Andersen was awarded the 2017 Keeping the Blues Alive Award from the Blues Foundation.

After years of making music in Western Pennsylvania, Price admits he was a bit nervous when he started recording at Greaseland. At one of the first sessions, Price found himself in the same room with the legendary bassist Jerry Jemmott.

“Jerry’s played with Aretha Franklin, King Curtis and Duane Allman,” Price says. “All bass players know who Jerry Jemmott is. Jaco Pastorious said that Jerry was his biggest influence, and he’s there sitting in a chair across from me.”

Despite dipping his toe into the blues pool, Price will always return to his soul roots. During every performance since 1971, Price has sung the Tyrone Davis chestnut “Can I Change My Mind,” which he first recorded with guitarist Roy Buchanan.

“I’m very proud of the body of work I’ve done over the last few years, and my live repertoire mostly consists of those songs ” he says. “But people want to hear the songs of mine they grew up with and love, and I will do that in a pinch.”

The 2020 Blues Music Awards take place May 7 in Memphis.