With her unique technique and feel, Laura Chavez is the guitarist everyone wants in their band. We’ve come to know her through Dark Season Blues as the guitarist for Nikki Hill and Vanessa Collier. In January, she made her debut as a solo artist, and this year she’s finally coming to the festival with her own band.
Laura lives in San Diego, a 15-minute drive from the Mexican border. Her father, Tony, is a first-generation immigrant to the U.S. Through countless road trips around California to jam sessions she was actually too young to attend, he and her mother, Cathy, were great supporters as she launched her career. As the regular guitarist in a house band during a jam session in San Jose, she met Lara Price. They toured together for eight years. When Candye Kane needed a new lead guitarist in 2008, Sue Foley recommended Laura. They collaborated until Kane’s death in 2016. Overwhelmed by grief, it took her a few months before she played guitar again, but the following year she was recruited to Nikki Hill’s band. Later, she became Vanessa Colliers’ “hired hand.” After accompanying both of them to Longyearbyen for the past two years, Laura is now returning to Dark Season Blues as a solo artist.
In January of this year, she released her debut album, *My Voice*, featuring her own songs as well as covers—several of which were inspired by Mexican music. It is an instrumental album. Laura doesn’t need words; her guitar is her voice. After many nominations, she was finally named Best Guitarist at the Blues Music Awards in Memphis in 2023—the first woman to receive the honor. Now you can see her as the bandleader at Dark Season Blues!
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