Staff Report

Popular local musicians Tom Ball and Kenny Sultan will celebrate their 40^th anniversary of playing together at 8 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 26, at the Lobero Theatre.

Tom Ball and Kenny Sultan met while guesting on local radio station KCSB.

Although they both had been playing individually for years, they met and began making music together in 1979 when guesting on local radio KCSB.

After they had played a song, the station received a phone call offering them $15 and a pizza to come play at the Sojourner restaurant. They accepted – but only after holding out for free beer. The rest, as they say, is history.

The Flying Fish/Rounder recording artists have now been playing their unique blend of guitar and harmonica blues, rags, and good time music to widely diverse audiences for 40 years. Their live performances include concerts, clubs and festivals all over the world.

Together and separately they have worked on countless film scores, TV soundtracks, commercials and sessions. They’ve appeared on television internationally, have played for audiences of 300 million via Voice of America and are frequent guests of National Public Radio.

Between them they have issued 14 CDs, 12 instructional books and several DVDs. Ball has played on more than 260 CDs, and Sultan was recently honored by Martin Guitars with his own Signature Model 000-18KS.

For more information, go to www.lobero.org.