Curtis Salgado saw Count Basie at 13 years old, turned to his father, and said: “This is what I want to do.” He has never wavered.

He learned racism through music — Count Basie couldn't walk through the front door of Carnegie Hall — and he learned history through the records his family stacked in every room of the house. By his early twenties he was playing harmonica in Eugene, Oregon, fronting The Nighthawks and co-leading the Robert Cray Band, fusing the five genres he'd inherited: funk, soul, gospel, R&B, and blues.

The recognition followed. Fourteen Blues Music Awards — including B.B. King Entertainer of the Year, multiple Soul Blues Male Artist awards, Soul Blues Album of the Year, and Song of the Year for “Walk a Mile in My Blues.” Every one earned under his own name, on his own records, with his own band.