"…One of the few great blues purists still around…
( American Blues Digest, 1999 )

" In the mold of Jimmy Reed, Muddy Waters, Lightnin Hopkins and Willie Mabon, Jesse Thomas brings that same down home soul and sound to his audiences… ( Living Legends, 1999 )

Click here to listen to samples of Jesse's music.

Jesse's new popularity amuses him, he likes to say that it's taken him 35 years to become an overnight sensation. He jokes that he wishes his audiences could have heard him then, when he "could really sing!"
But you can't tell that to his audiences today. When you watch the faces of the wide range of fans just getting' hip to his version of real down home New Orleans blues, you know that they disagree with Jesse. Because he's still singing his natural ass off.

Jesse Thomas is the real thing. Born in New Orleans, right off Rampart Street in the French Quarter, at a time when folks really did march daily down the street singing When The Saints Go Marchin In. When Fats Domino, Chris Kenner, Huey " Piano" Smith and Joe Simon were all singing in the streets for coins and sandwiches, Jesse was right there with them paying them dues, doing his thang, singing them blues.

But it wasn't too long before he left the New Orleans " street stage " and joined Huey Smith's original Clowns, producing hit after hit on the blues and Chitlin Circuit. After leaving the Clowns, Jesse went out on his own as a single, touring every corner of the South with just enough success to encourage him to come North and try his blues out in the big city.

New York City has been Jesse's home base for the past few decades and New York has been the better for it. In the big city's rhythm and blues milieu, one of the first names you heard mentioned was Jesse Thomas. But, with the 70' s and 80's trend in music turning to the more plastic versions of sound, in order to make ends meet, Jesse became sort of a part-time sound maker - playing more labor than music. But he never stopped singing; Jesse Thomas and his Soul Rockers would play wherever they wanted and needed them - the Senior Citizens Center, Weddings, Hospitals, VA Concerts, American Legions, wherever and whatever.

In 1996, a group of local musicians and agents persuaded Jesse to come back on the scene, that the public was opening up again to blues and soul music, that people needed to hear him tell their stories in his great blues renditions. He came back with a " bang!! " Now regularly headlining some of the best blues spots, like Abilene Club ( Chicago Blues ), the Lone Star, Finally Fred's, Small's Restaurant and Lounge, Royston's, 2 Boots, the Tribeca and Village Gate, etc…

Jesse Thomas' Latest CD- "Easy In The Apple"

Fortunately for the world's blues lovers, Jesse has just recorded and released his first CD for Fedora Records and its reception in the music capital of the world has been tremendous. If you haven't already got it - get it!!!