Booker Back Bar Piano Sessions with Joe Krown: 8PM

http://joekrown.com/

He has been nominated twice and won a 2000 New Orleans Big Easy Award in the Blues category. His trio with Johnny Sansone & John Fohl won a 2004 New Orleans Big Easy Award in the Blues category. His Hammond organ trio featuring legendary Louisiana guitarist Walter Wolfman Washington won a 2009 New Orleans Big Easy Award in the Blues Category and a 2009 Offbeat Award for Best R&B/Funk Album. In April 2014, he was honored with a Piano Legacy Award, presented by the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra and for being a "Master of Piano". He is currently touring all over the U.S. and the world as the organ/piano player for the multi award winning, chart topping Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band.

Joe held the keyboard chair with Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown & Gate’s Express from 1992 until Gatemouth's passing in the fall of 2005. Joe is featured on the chart topping albums The Man (1993), Gate Swings (1997), American Music, Texas Style (1999) and Back to Bogalusa (2001) CDs and Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown - In Concert: Ohne Filter (2003) DVD. Joe is also featured in Gatemouth's band on Carlos Santana's Carlos Santana Presents Blues At Montreux 2004 (2006) DVD. In 1995, Gatemouth and Gate's Express including Joe on keyboards, did a 62 date world tour as the opening act for Eric Clapton. The band, Gate's Express won an Offbeat 2004 Best Band in the Blues Category.

Joe's band, the Joe Krown Organ Combo (New Orleans, LA) was formed in 1999. The Joe Krown Organ Combo performs every week at one of the many New Orleans nightclubs, including the Maple Leaf Bar, House of Blues, Tipitina's, Le Bon Temps Roule and dba. The "Combo" makes regular appearances at the French Quarter Festival in New Orleans and the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. The band made its European debut in November 2001 at the Ingolstadt Jazztage in Ingolstadt Germany. The Joe Krown Organ Combo has 4 CD releases. Down & Dirty (1999), Buckle Up (2000) and Funkyard (2002) were all released on the New Orleans label STRdigital. The Joe Krown Organ Combo’s newest release, Livin Large was released in February 2005 and is Joe's first self-produced, independently released CD.

Joe has two solo piano CDs on the New Orleans label STRdigital. Just the Piano...Just the Blues (1998) and New Orleans Piano Rolls (2003). Both are solo piano performance featuring original New Orleans piano/boogie-woogie style compositions and classic New Orleans piano songs. His current solo piano CD, Exposed is a follow to the STRdigital CDs. He's been a headline performer at WWOZ's Piano Night during the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival every year since 1997. Joe plays regular solo piano performances in New Orleans at Ralph's on the Park, Le Bon Temps and the Jazz Playhouse in the Sonesta Hotel on Bourbbon St. In October 2005 after Hurricane Katrina and the failures of the federal levee systems destroyed Joe's home city of New Orleans, he returned home and started playing around New Orleans with his piano trio, the Joe Krown Trio. In March of 2007, Krown released his 8th CD Old Friends (2007) featuring the trio.

In the spring of 2007, Joe started playing every Sunday night at the Maple Leaf Bar (New Orleans, LA) with Walter Wolfman Washington (guitar & vocals) and Russell Batiste (drums). It features Joe playing Hammond B-3 organ where Joe plays all the bass parts on the organ. The Sunday nights were so successful that the trio released a live CD, Live at the Maple Leaf (Oct. 2008). Live at the Maple was produced by Joe and will be the first live CD in Joe’s catalogue. Live at the Maple won a 2009 Offbeat Award for Best R&B/Funk CD. The trio also won a 2009 Big Easy Award in the "Best Rhythm & Blues Band" category. In the fall of 2010, the Trio released Triple Threat (JK1004), the follow up to Live at the Maple Leaf and their first studio CD. The trio released it's 3rd CD Soul Understanding (JK1006) for Jazz Fest 2013. The Trio was invited to be part of 15 city U.S. tour called "New Orleans Nights" (November 2010). The band was a feature along with Nicholas Payton and Allen Toussaint. In the fall of 2017 Russell Batiste left the Trio and Wayne Maureau took over the drum chair.

After the untimely passing of the legendary great Allen Toussaint in November 2015, Joe was selected to fill the maestro's chair by playing piano with Toussaint's band backing up greats like Bonnie Rait, Aaron Neville, Irma Thomas, Dr. John, Cyril Neville and more at the 2016 New Orleans Jazz Fest, Hollwood Bowl, Midsummer Night Swing at Lincoln Center and more.

In May 2017 in addition to being a headline performer for the 29th annual WWOZ Piano Night at the New Orleans House of Blues during the 2017 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, Joe was selected to be the producer for the event. As producer, Joe put together a great show featuring 10 of the best local New Orleans piano players. The 2017 WWOZ Piano Night was so successful that Joe was named the permanent producer of the WWOZ Piano Night. The 2018 WWOZ Piano Night was even more successful with a sell-out show.

In June 2017 Joe joined the Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band as the full time piano/organ player. The Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band has been nominated five times for a Grammy Award, has received two Billboard Music Awards, two Blues Music Awards and two Orville H. Gibson Awards. The band has had 3 platinum (1 million sold) selling CDs and 1 gold (500,000 sold) selling CD. The Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band is a headline act on the modern blues scene, has made appearances on late night TV and been an opening act for major acts like Van Halen, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Aerosmith and Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Joe made his acting debut in the HBO series Treme. He did a scene in Season 1, episode 4; "At the Foot of Canal Street" (air date 5/2/10) and Season 3, episode 5; "I Thought I Heard Buddy Bolden Say" (air date 10/21/12). He also has music from some of his CDs featured on the show. Moore Women Shuffle (Piano Rolls) was featured in "Meet De Boys on the Battlefront" (air date 4/18/10) and All That and Then Some (Exposed) was in "I Thought I Heard Buddy Bolden Say" (air date 10/21/12). Joe can also be seen in several episodes of the TNT series Memphis Beat and the Deniro/Stallone movie Grudge Match (2013).