Billy Branch

Billy Branch is an Emmy Award winner, three-time Grammy Award nominee, retired Grammy governor, and internationally respected blues harmonica artist whose career spans nearly five decades. A 2020 inductee into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame, Branch has received multiple Blues Music Awards, including the 2025 Best Harmonica Instrumentalist honor, as well as Living Blues Critics’ Awards and several Keeping the Blues Alive recognitions for his long-running Blues in Schools program. Mentored by legends such as Willie Dixon, Junior Wells, and James Cotton, he began touring in the late 1970s with the Willie Dixon All Stars and has since introduced Chicago blues to audiences worldwide, including groundbreaking tours in China. Branch appears on more than 300 recordings, fifteen under his own name, and has collaborated with artists including Koko Taylor, Johnny Winter, Taj Mahal, and Keb’ Mo’. Recognized as a Mellon Foundation Culture-Bearer, he continues to preserve and advance the global legacy of the blues.