Homeless bluesman Guitar Red releases his critically acclaimed debut album ‘Lightnin’ in a Bottle’.

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--This past summer, Decatur, Georgia based blues guitarist and singer Guitar Red (www.backspacerecords.com) fulfilled an unexpected lifelong dream, with the release of his debut album Lightnin’ In A Bottle.

As the first release by recently launched Atlanta indie label Backspace Records, the day could have easily called for a dual celebration. But there was no formal fanfare, no scheduled record release party at a big club, no streamers and balloons or packaged performance with a backing band.

Instead, the 44 year-old street musician—real name, Billy Christian Walls—spent the day doing what he always does around the square of Decatur, strumming his guitar and singing songs of women, drinking and hard times in the raw, unvarnished tradition of real blues. The Robert Johnson blues that can only come from knowing hunger, poverty, heartache, loss, drug and alcohol addiction, not to mention homelessness.

Red and Lightnin’ In A Bottle recently won two key prizes in Real Blues Magazine’s Annual Real Blues Awards: Best Debut Blues CD and Best New Blues Artist.

Blues Underground Network called the album “a true debut blues masterpiece,” while Blogcritics Magazine wrote: “I’d lay odds that when he plays street corners, not only do people stop, but traffic does too"

Red made some money in the past as a studio musician. Many of those associations were predatory, according to Red who said artists would use him for his guitar work and “pay” him with a bottle of liquor. “It really hurts me when somebody takes my music, it’s like stealing a part of a person.”

Still, he’s optimistic about the future and excited that people beyond the streets of Decatur will be hearing him thanks to the official release of Lightnin’ In A Bottle. “One day,” he says, “I woke up and realized it wasn’t so bad being Guitar Red after all. When you find yourself it is the greatest gift. You just know where you are going.”

Here's a YouTube performance by Guitar Red.

photo coutesy Back Space Records.