COMING SOON TO QUALIFIED RECORDS
In a town where scions of music royalty are seemingly everywhere, Grammy winner and traditional blues guitarist Yates McKendree stands out from the proverbial crowd with a truly original presence. His no-nonsense and intuitive approach to whatever instrument he chooses to engage - electric guitar, double bass and drums for instance, comes certainly from his parental and family influences but also is shaped by some of the artists he’s worked with recently, most notably Delbert McClinton (with whom McKendree won a Grammy for his work on Tall, Dark & Handsome) and in 2022 on Delbert’s brand-new LP, Outdated Emotion, John Hiatt, and Seth James.
As he was growing up he had many opportunities to perform for and with some of music’s best and biggest stars. He played a rockin’ boogie on the piano for Little Richard, who declared “Oooooh, that’s hard to do! I’m gonna call you ‘piano boy’!” Yates has earned standing ovations at the Tennessee Theatre in Knoxville, TN when John Oates featured him on a portion of his show, the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival when Delbert McClinton featured him on his set. Yates was also featured on the late Don Imus's television and radio show with nationwide distribution.
Yates is currently finishing his first solo CD, tentatively titled Buchanan Lane, to be released in Summer 2022 on Qualified Records.