His musi­cal jour­ney began in Vicks­burg, Mis­sis­sippi, in the heart of the Delta, where he was born. He was in the church choir as a young per­son and used to sing tenor, bari­tone and bass. He jokes that he wasn’t allowed to sing the “rough stuff” like rock and roll in those days and that he was only allowed to sing gospel. He’d have to “slip away” to sing sec­u­lar songs. Terry secretly lis­tened to peo­ple like Elmore James, Lit­tle Wal­ter, Albert King and B.B. King, to name a few. It was then that he decided he wanted be a soul singer.

In the six­ties, Terry worked with an a cap­pella group called The Knights, tour­ing through­out the South in clubs and juke joints. From there Terry was lured to the west coast where he first picked up the gui­tar, started writ­ing music and soon became a pro­lific song­writer. Pops Sta­ples as well as the late, great Louis Jor­dan (among oth­ers) have recorded his songs.

Long before Terry made his first record­ing fronting his own band, music fans were prob­a­bly well acquainted with his amaz­ing voice. For years, the soul­ful singer was one of Los Ange­les’ fore­most ses­sion vocal­ists, receiv­ing a gold record for his work on John Fogarty’s “Eye of the Zom­bie” and record­ing with Ry Cooder, Joan Arma­trad­ing, John Lee Hooker, Boz Scaggs, Maria Mul­daur, Pops Sta­ples, and many other well respected artists.

He teamed up with singer Bobby King in the early sev­en­ties; they toured as a duo, appear­ing at many pres­ti­gious clubs and fes­ti­vals. In 1976 when Ry Cooder was look­ing for back­ground singers, Bobby King rec­om­mended Terry. Their dis­tinc­tive voices became a fea­ture of sev­eral of Ry’s crit­i­cally acclaimed albums, includ­ing “Chicken Skin Music,” “Get Rhythm,” “Show Time,” and “Slide Area.” Bobby and Terry were still tour­ing as a duo dur­ing this time. Terry sang lead vocal on “Down in Mis­sis­sippi” on the “Cross­roads” movie sound­track album, with Ry singing the title song. In the actual film, Terry sings the title song. Terry toured with Ry Cooder through­out the U.S., Europe and Japan and cred­its Ry for being a great inspi­ra­tion to him in his musi­cal efforts since being in California.

In addi­tion to his work with other artists, Terry recorded two albums with Bobby King, as well as eight of his own. He is now tour­ing with his own band, and is record­ing a new CD for 2008.

Ry Cooder has said that he always thought that his long time singer, Terry Evans, made a bet­ter “front man.” To see him per­form is to under­stand why. Terry is one of the most dynamic soul and blues singers per­form­ing today, writ­ing and singing about all aspects of human emo­tion, and cre­at­ing a con­nec­tion with his audi­ence in the process

More info at: Terry Evans Music