Snippet from Rebecca's solos on Cari Quoyeser's CD "Blueprints to Infinity" available at www.cariquoyeser.com

Sydney - Cari Quoyeser "Blueprints to Infinity" CD Featuring Rebecca Laird

Better Days - Cari Quoyeser "Blueprints to Infinity" CD Featuring Rebecca Laird

Meridian

Houston

Memphis

James Nagel, Blues Hound KPFT Radio Interview Rebecca Laird

Can't You See - Tin Cadillac Bryant's Ice House Katy Texas 10.27.12

Can't You See

Original song written by Rebecca for the Battle of the Blues 2012 final.

Battle Of The Blues Acoustic

What happens when you put a blues legend, Texas Johnny Brown, with “this little lady?” According to William Michael Smith of the Houston Press… “Laird’s eyes got big when Brown nodded to her to take the first solo. And the young redhead stung it like a bumblebee. Roll Susan Tedeschi and Bonnie Raitt into a 100 pound, 18 year old package, and you’ll have some idea of what this little lady can do with a guitar. In fact she stung it so hard and so legitimately that Brown just smiled, nodded to her to take another solo, closed his eyes and laid in the rhythm while the little lady proceeded to tear up some blues.” - The Houston Press

Rebecca Laird picked up a guitar at age 13 and hasn’t let go of one since! She grew up playing classic rock as well as Christian rock at church, retreats and other events with her Dad in the band, Servant’s Heart. (She is still their lead guitar player) One day she saw Stevie Ray Vaughan on a PBS special. In Rebecca’s words, “When I saw him for the first time on TV, it was like getting hit by a train! Hearing Stevie totally changed everything I wanted to do musically. I wanted to play with whatever it was that Stevie had which makes you feel like someone’s punched you in the gut. I’m still not exactly sure what that is, but it has to do with playing from the heart.”

Needless to say, her first Blues musical influences were Stevie Ray and Jimmie Vaughan. As Rebecca researched who influenced them, she poured over the music of Albert King, Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, Jimmy Reed, Guitar Slim, Buddy Guy, B.B. King, Albert Collins, T-Bone Walker, Freddie King, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Gatemouth Brown and so on. Texas blues is in her DNA.

Rebecca, a Houston native, has been honored to be a two-time recipient of the Jimmy “T-99” Nelson Scholarship Award for Youth awarded by The Houston Blues Society. For the past three years she has received scholarships from The National Guitar Workshop to attend their Blues Summit in Austin Texas.

Once, she inadvertently opened for Hubert Sumlin (guitarist for Howlin’ Wolf), Bob Margolin (guitarist for Muddy Waters) and Pinetop Perkins (piano player for Muddy Waters) at Antones one night in July 2010 - great story! She also had the chance to play with Elvin Bishop and his band on stage. She opened for Ted Nugent at a Wounded Warriors benefit concert with Little Terry Rogers, Spare Time Murray and Marc Dufrene (The BluesBirds). She has had the privilege of sharing the stage with many great musicians in Houston and Austin.

Rebecca has worked with Dan Workman at Sugar Hill Recording Studios for the Cari Quoyeser Band. Rebecca is the lead guitarist in the Cari Q Band to which she brings a blues flavor to their latest CD “Blueprints to Infinity.” Watch for Cari on this season’s American Idol!

Borrowing the words of William Michael Smith of the Houston Press - “Look out Houston, the future looks bright, we’ve got another very serious picker on our hands.”

RebeccaLaird