The Radio Kings

The Radio Kings are a blues and "Americana" band based in Boston, MA and fronted by singer and harp player Brian Templeton and guitarist Michael Dinallo. After hearing the Radio Kings in 1991, just 4 months after their founding, Jerry Portnoy, who played for years with Muddy Waters, said, "This is the best new blues band I've seen since the Fabulous Thunderbirds in 1975, when the T-Birds and Stevie Ray Vaughan opened for Muddy." The group debuted in 1994 with It Ain't Easy, which allmusic.com called a "showcase for their clear affection for the gritty sound of giants including Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter and Slim Harpo [....]" In their ’90s heyday, the Radio Kings toured relentlessly both in the United States and Europe and put out two more well-received albums. In Europe, the Netherlands in particular, they became bona fide stars, being invited to major festivals and selling bushels of records. Then the Kings started suffering burnout. Constant touring and the struggle to keep a band together - the group went through a revolving door of 17 drummers and bass players - proved exhausting. The band broke up in 1999. Following an ten-year year hiatus, The Radio Kings re-formed and released a fourth album, "The Radio Kings," in 2009. The Quincy (MA) Patriot Ledger says the album is "more Americana and less rockin’ blues." The Boston Globe said it suggests "everyone from [[artist]Daniel Lanois] to the Allman Brothers Band." The band maintains a MySpace page at http://www.myspace.com/theradiokings Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.