Cole Prior Stevens

Cole Prior Stevens... guitarist, singer & songwriter has been working his craft in the blues genre for nearly three decades. As a contemporary acoustic & electric blues guitarist, Cole draws his unique slide guitar style from the pre war Blues Masters from the likes of Son House, Robert Johnson, Earl Hooker and Muddy Waters.

While calling Louisville Kentucky home, his musical ideas and style were shaped and honed from his West Coast upbringing in Southern California. Whether he is slinging his favorite Strat fronting his own band or sliding a bottleneck solo across the fret board of his trusty old metal body National resonator guitar as a solo artist, Cole has developed a definitive, cross-cut style of his own.

For the last 6 years Cole has been redefining and reshaping is music craft to create a very unique vocal and playing style. Reaching for a new level of slide guitar style, Cole has succeed in finding his voice that fans and critics are now paying close attention to with his latest 2007 release- Slide-Ville.

This is not about a guitar player that plays a bit of slide guitar. This is about a man who has submersed himself into the greatest emotional depth of slide craft in it’s entirety. It included a commitment to adventure onto the unbeaten path of serious electric Lapslide guitar, which is virtually unheard of these days sans an incredibly small handful of artists brave enough to embrace the instrument. As a result, Cole shares his personal discoveries for his audiences at his shows with intense fervor.

He shows the listener the continued historical importance of the role of slide guitar and it’s contribution to the blues. From the simple rawness of single note riffs on a National resonator to blistering electric solos on a Stratocaster to complex chordal melodies on a Lapslide guitar, no one in the business of performing original music is doing what Cole has envisioned for the blues.

Cole’s unique vocal style decorates each song with refreshing character. His style is the perfect partner for Cole's song-craft and lyrics. Even hardcore blues enthusiasts have remarked repeated how his carefully arranged cover songs have been practically re-invented into a new and original form.

All of Cole’s song writing are interlaced with personal philosophies about the fragile human experience, to which we all share a common thread. Listeners are gently provoked to consider the unique perspectives of what Cole is all about and he isn’t afraid to carry his blues artistically into all other available musical dimensions either. Cole is performing our future's blues for audiences in the here and now.