Eden Brent

EDEN BRENT
Life in the birthplace of the blues: a riches to rags story
about
Rhythm & blues lady Eden Brent is a piano-pounding, juke-joint hollering powerhouse of American music. A legendary performer and southern songwriter, she spent the first two decades of her career under the tutelage of Abie “Boogaloo” Ames, before winning The International Blues Challenge and bouncing onto the global music scene. Since then she lands steady honors, with five Blues Music Awards and a lengthy list of lifetime accolades. Recently Brent won 2026 Traditional Blues Female Artist (Koko Taylor Award) at the 47th Annual Blues Music Awards following her 2025 Piano trophy win last year and commanding performances at both awards shows. This fall Brent releases her eighth studio album, a collection of American originals titled Things Going South. Recorded at the legendary Sam Phillips Recording in Memphis, the album showcases ten songs of love and protest and is a modern reflection of traditional blues. 
family
Eden was born into a family of riverboat captains and guitar pickers in the river port of Greenville, the largest town in the Mississippi Delta, renowned for its literary history. Eden’s own story could have been written by Eudora Welty or Tennessee Williams, or any number of Mississippi’s colorful authors. By the time she was old enough to drive, she christened the M/V Eden Brent, a working towboat built by her family’s river transportation company. The Greenville Bridge and a river museum in Vicksburg bear the name of her grandfather Capt. Jesse who was dubbed "Riverman of the Century" by the Waterways Journal. Her father Capt. Howard, famous for his Hank Williams renditions and grand story-telling, received the “River Legend Award” by the Seaman’s Church Institute who also named a riverboat training simulator in his honor. Mother Carole was a sharecropper turned fashion model, big band singer and “Miss Ace Records” who landed on the cover of Inside Detective magazine and worked at Chicago’s famed Chez Paris where she encountered Boogaloo's friend Nat King Cole and members of the Rat Pack. Both of Eden’s parents met Elvis Presley, her father in 1955 and her mother in 1956. The Brent household overflowed with music on reel-to-reel and vinyl, all played on a Hi-Fi that was formerly owned by Jerry Lee Lewis and later auctioned by the IRS where the Brents bought it. Suppertime sparked entertainment hour with regular family sing-a-longs. Author Julia Reed remembers the home as “a soulful and far funnier version of ‘The Sound of Music,’" and refers to the family as the “von Brents.” 
neighborhood
Eden’s hometown hosts The Mississippi Delta Blues & Heritage Festival, the oldest blues festival in the world, which she first attended as a youngster. Through the years the festival hosted the greats, from Albert King to Denise LaSalle and from Koko Taylor to Memphis Slim. Locals, who were noted internationally,  played the festival annually, people like Sam Chatmon of the Mississippi Sheiks, T-Model Ford, James “Son” Thomas, and Eugene “Sonny Boy Nelson” Powell. The local VFW presented acts like Bobby Blue Bland while Little Milton Campbell played Nelson Street, and of course there were the yearly homecoming visits by B. B. King. Eden was in the right place at the right time, immersed in the Blues at its Mississippi Delta birthplace during this revival. 
education & development 
Eden studied jazz and was classically trained in piano and voice at the University of North Texas, earning her degree in music theory. She started learning piano at age three and was given her first guitar at age nine. Piano lessons were part of her formal education from elementary school through music college and finally her apprenticeship with Boogaloo Ames. Eden explains: 
            “My grandmother played piano. She taught me Middle C and the musical alphabet. I had an ear for music and was pecking out simple tunes before I was old enough to go to school, so my parents put me in piano lessons. My elementary school teachers often had me lead our class in song after the morning pledge and sing the solo in school plays. I did talent shows and entertained at retirement homes. I was a natural performer and always loved performing, but I hated practicing until I started working with Boogaloo. He taught me how to really play.” 
The pair worked together for nearly twenty years until Boogaloo's death in 2002. Thereafter, Eden continued playing and along the way worked with folks like Lil’ Bill Wallace (an early contemporary of B.B.  King’s), and Eddie Cusic (a member of the Rhythm Aces and Little Milton’s guitar teacher). Eden also worked with guitar sensation Lil' Dave Thompson and harmonica legend Willie Foster and was a member of the Mississippi Delta Blues Revue, a local favorite featuring John Horton, Mississippi Slim, and Mickey Rogers. She eventually established her solo act, performing the Mississippi Delta Blues &  Heritage Festival, a festival that inspired her career! She continues to make regular appearances there.
media
Eden is featured in three documentaries: Boogaloo & Eden: Sustaining the Sound; Forty Days in the Delta; and 180 Degrees: Changing Lives in the Mississippi Delta; in publications like Living Blues, USA Today and Garden & Gun; on national radio broadcasts including Mountain Stage, NPR's Weekend Edition, and American Routes; and is among Mississippi’s living blues legends in H. C. Porter’s touring exhibit and companion book Blues@Home. Eden's music continues to delight both critics and live audiences alike.
gigs
A performer at heart, Eden plays clubs, concerts and festivals like the down-home Juke Joint Festival in Clarksdale and the epic Chicago Blues Festival, the largest free festival in the world. She travels to faraway places like Boogie Woogie La Roquebrou in France and Notodden Blues Festival in Norway. She frequently hosts the Piano Bar aboard the Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise and also presents workshops and educational programs like the Port Townsend, Washington, Traditional Blues Workshop. 
recordings
Eden is a Yellow Dog Records recording artist and there are six solo albums in her catalogue: Something Cool (2003); Mississippi Number One (2008); Ain't Got No Troubles (2010); Jigsaw Heart (2014); An Eden Brent Christmas with Bob Dowell (2018), and Getaway Blues (2024). She works keys and sings harmony on Grammy nominee John Primer's 2025 album, Grown in Mississippi, sings the duet “Southern Honey” with bluesman Johnny Rawls on his 2016 Tiger in a Cage album and boogies on Kern Pratt’s 2015 release Broken Chains. In 2012 she recorded Party Dress, an album of songs written by her mother, the late Carole Brent, with her sisters, Jessica and Bronwynne, both songwriters. 
awards & nominations
A renowned songwriter, performer and recording artist, Eden is the winner of five Blues Music Awards. Most recently she won 2026 Traditional Blues Female Artist (Koko Taylor Award) at the 47th Annual Blues Music Awards after winning top Piano honor and garnering an amazing eight total blues nominations in 2025, following the release of Getaway Blues. Eden previously won the Piano award in 2010, and in 2009 took Awards for Acoustic Blues Album and Acoustic Blues Artist. She is a former Mississippi Arts Commission Folk Arts Fellowship recipient and received a 1993 Folk Arts Apprenticeship with mentor Abie “Boogaloo” Ames. In 2011 she received the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters “Popular Music Composition Award” for her album Ain’t Got No Troubles. Finally, she has a total sixteen Blues Music Award nominations, repeated nominations in the Living Blues and Blues Blast Music Awards, and she won the International Blues Challenge in 2006.
Blues Music Awards: 
   Winner - 2026 Traditional Blues Female Artist (Koko Taylor Award) 
   Winner - 2025 Instrumentalist - Piano (Pinetop Perkins Piano Player)
   Winner – 2010 Pinetop Perkins Piano Player
   Winner – 2009 Acoustic Artist 
   Winner – 2009 Acoustic Album - Mississippi Number One
   Nominee - 2025 Song of the Year - “Watch the World Go By” written by Bob Dowell & Eden Brent
   Nominee - 2025 Traditional Blues Album - Getaway Blues
   Nominee - 2025 Traditional Blues Female Artist (Koko Taylor Award)
   Nominee – 2022 Pinetop Perkins Piano
   Nominee - 2015 Acoustic Blues Album 
   Nominee – 2015 Pinetop Perkins Piano  
   Nominee – 2012 Pinetop Perkins Piano  
   Nominee – 2011 Album of the Year - Ain’t Got No Troubles
   Nominee – 2011 Koko Taylor Traditional Female Artist 
   Nominee – 2011 Pinetop Perkins Piano Player
   Nominee – 2009 Pinetop Perkins Piano Player
   Nominee – 2009 Best New Artist Debut
Blues Blast Music Awards:
   Nominee - 2025 Traditional Blues Album
   Nominee - 2025 Female Blues Artist
   Nominee - 2025 Keyboard Player of the Year
   Nominee - 2024 Keyboard Player of the Year
   Nominee - 2011 Female Blues Artist 
   Nominee - 2009 Best New Artist Debut Recording - Mississippi Number One
   Nominee - 2009 Sean Costello Rising Star Award
   Nominee - 2008 Sean Costello Rising Star Award
Living Blues Awards:
   Nominee - 2025 Most Outstanding Musician - Keyboard
   Nominee - 2024 Most Outstanding Musician - Keyboard
   Nominee - 2022 Most Outstanding Musician - Keyboard
   Nominee - 2020 Most Outstanding Musician - Keyboard
   Nominee - 2019 Most Outstanding Musician - Keyboard
   Nominee - 2018 Most Outstanding Musician - Keyboard
   Nominee - 2016 Most Outstanding Musician - Keyboard
   Nominee - 2011 Most Outstanding Musician - Keyboard
   Nominee - 2010 Most Outstanding Musician - Keyboard 
   Nominee - 2009 Blues Artist of the Year
Independent Music Awards:
    Winner – 2015 Holiday Song (“Valentine” Jigsaw Heart)
    Nominee – 2015 Jazz with Vocals Song 
    Nominee – 2011 Blues Album 
    Nominee – 2011 Adult Contemporary Song 
    Nominee – 2009 Blues Album
home
Eden lives in Greenville with her husband, Bob Dowell, a London musician whom she met on the Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise, and their chiweenie, Monty. She has an eclectic taste in music and enjoys reading novels, watching documentaries, and cooking. She is an easily excitable amateur astronomer who eclipse chases and is expanding her universe as the world gets ever smaller. 

• Bonus trivia! Eden:
  Suffered childhood middle finger injury requiring surgical tendon repair and threatening musical future.
  First scuba dived at age 10 and became a certified diver at age 14.
  Played flute and piccolo in school marching and concert band and Fender Rhodes in school jazz band.
  Served as a Democratic House of Representatives Page, living and working in Washington, DC just prior to the Congressional-Page cocaine scandal of 1982.
• Placed top nationally in high school essay contest sponsored by Daughters of the American Revolution, winning trip to Washington, DC.
  Learned to drive manual transmission Toyota truck at 12 years old, licensed by 14.
  Worked as a Commodities Broker in Training before returning to University of North Texas to finish her Bachelor of Music Theory.
  Performed at the Kennedy Center with her mentor Boogaloo Ames in 2000.
  Very possibly the shortest Blues Music Award Winner of all time at a mere 4'11 ½"!
   

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