MISTY BLUES BIO: 2019 International Blues Challenge finalist, Misty Blues, is led by lead singer/band founder Gina Coleman. The band is based out of Berkshire County, Massachusetts playing original and traditional blues with hints of jazz, soul, funk and tent revival gospel since 1999. The band has recorded and shared the stage with Charles Neville and opened for contemporary blues artists like Tab Benoit, John Primer, Albert Cummings and Michael Powers. Misty Blues performs extensively throughout New England and has toured New York City, Harrisburg, Mishawaka, Knoxville, Birmingham, Montgomery, Muscle Shoals, Clarksdale, Memphis, New Orleans and Ontario Canada. The band recently earned an Independent Blues Music Award nomination for the best contemporary blues song. The band’s original recordings have wide radio airplay in the U.S. and UK. In the summer of 1999 Gina Coleman was performing in the Williamstown Theatre Festival production of A Raisin In The Sun. That production featured the acting of Ruben Santiago Hudson, Viola Davis, Kimberly Elise and Gloria Foster. Coleman was casted as a gospel singer. Nearing the end of the show’s run, Ruben Santiago Hudson gave Coleman a cd collection entitled Men Are Like Streetcars. He told her that her voice was well suited for the blues and urged her to take that next musical direction. Coleman heeded his advance, and after 20 years, Misty Blues has stood the test of time.