Blues guitarist Cliff Stevens

  ..is an award-winning artist from Montreal, Canada. He has played the blues and toured for several decades throughout Canada, Europe, Mexico and Morocco. His solo debut on Preservation Blues Review featured two original songs that received critical acclaim.His self-titled album Cliff Stevens received awards & praise. Since then, he has released 4 solo albums, each receiving awards and rave reviews:

Blues Matters Magazine (UK) – “Stevens is every inch a performer in the same mould as Eric Clapton…this man is totally awesome!”

Blues Blast Magazine (USA) – “This man has a lot of cool stuff to say.”

Blues Music Magazine (USA) – “A great artist…hot licks and blistering music…dripping with emotion.”

Cliff Stevens has been playing guitar professionally for longer than he sometimes cares to admit, around 35 years to be vaguely precise. Like so many blues musicians before him, he spent much of his career displaying his significant talents in relative obscurity as a sideman with various travelling groups. Crowds ranged anywhere from 14,000 at the Montreal International Jazz Festival to 1,400 at the Medley Club in Montreal to 14 drunks in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan.

Like a moth to a flame, Stevens was drawn irresistibly to the genre. He recalls learning to play at 13 jamming for hours to slow blues in a coffee house in his home town of Montreal that was a hot bed for Canadian guitarists like Frank Marino of Mahogany Rush and being influenced by the foremost British and American blues rock guitarists of the day. “Clapton just jammed all night long and I was blown away,” Stevens says of a Cream concert that he attended in Montreal in 1968. “I then saw Johnny Winter in 1970 and memorized every lick I could.”

The non-stop grind of six-nights a week on the road mixed with alcohol and drugs took its toll. “I was burned out, disillusioned, I badly needed a break,” says Stevens who stepped away from music from 1982 to 1985 to drive taxi in Toronto.

He also went back to school earning a Masters Degree in Music and Education from Concordia University in Montreal and explored other musical styles. “I really got into jazz for a while but I kept getting calls for blues gigs and had no real opportunity to master the jazz language,” he says.

After 7 years of sobriety, Stevens headed back out on the road but suffered a relapse while performing in Morocco. “It lasted close to 3 years and almost did me in – it was really rough,” he confides.

Alcohol and drug-free since 1998 and with a renewed focus on his forte of the blues, Stevens’ solo career has taken flight. Four solo albums achieving critical acclaim and chart success, seven European tours and 33 dates supporting the legendary British rock group Wishbone Ash have seen Stevens gain much popularity and new fans worldwide.

With his Clapton-like looks, raspy vocals and vast knowledge and virtuosity as a blues guitarist, Stevens is recognised as the world’s premier Eric Clapton impersonator, faithfully and respectfully recreating the music of a legend and one of his formative influences. www.EricClaptonTribute.com

He released his fourth solo CD, Nobody But You in June, 2019 with the first video World of Worry starring Sandra Ackland.

A great guitarist who sings the blues with the road-hardened voice of experience, Cliff Stevens is a must see.