Description:

Big Gene and Danny Lee’s Loud Pack is East Tennessee’s hottest new blues band! This group is a winning combination of powerful, soulful vocals mixed with a team of excellent veteran guitars, screaming organ, and a rock-steady rhythm section. This may be the first time you have heard of this band, but Loud Pack will soon be a name that is synonymous with a great night of blues.

Band members Big Gene Chandler (vocals), Danny Lee Michel (lead guitar), Steve Michel (rhythm guitar), Stevie Jones (organ), Ryan Johnson (bass), and Jared White (drums) are elated to be heading to Memphis in January to be representing the Smoky Mountain Blues Society at the 29th International Blues Challenge (IBC). The guys won the regional semi-quarters and will be competing with approximately 110 bands from around the world. Multiple W.C. Handy Award nominee and 1994 IBC finalist Sean Costello said many times of Danny Lee, “If I could afford him, I would have him in my band!”

Loud Pack’s forth-coming album, Tennessee Blues, is “packed” with a fantastic assortment of blues originals written by Big Gene, Danny Lee, and Steve. Big Gene, like so many before him, learned to sing from his heart in church. He then added R & B and Rap. With his first love being blues and having been torn down a time or two, he has penned his pain and has some blues to share with us all. Everyone can relate to “Be Fine”: when Gene’s woman says “I don’t love you no more”, we can feel that hurt, but he lets her and the world know that “Big Gene’s gonna be fine.” Danny Lee and Steve bring their Strats into the songs and take turns telling us that they too have been there before.

With influences ranging from Muddy Waters and the classic Chicago blues sound, to Little Milton, Bobby Bland, Johnnie Taylor, and the Malaco Records’ Soul blues, to Jimi Hendrix and his hybrid Rock/R&B/Blues style. These styles and the bluesmen that bore them are the heart and soul of this bands influence. Listen, these guys will take you way back, then they will rock the house!

Members of the band have performed or shared the stage with John Mayer, The Allman Brothers, Buddy Guy, Los Lonely Boys, Bob Margolin, MC Lyte, Crime Mob, Jibbs, Anson Funderburgh, Sean Costello, Gary Nicholson, J.P. Soars, Damon Fowler, and many more.