Singing the Dive Bar Soul Blues

The Nashville-based, dive bar soul singer and songwriter Phillip-Michael Scales is coming to you live this Friday, Jan. 26, at 8 pm from the Hult Center’s 10×10 series, performing songs from his latest album Sinner – Songwriter, which released in 2021.

“I’m very blues influenced,” Scales tells Eugene Weekly. Growing up, he had a close relationship with the famous American blues guitarist, B.B. King — although known to him as Uncle B — who affectionately called him his nephew. 

Even with that connection, he could never find his story within the genre as a young man. “When I was a kid I ran away” from the blues,” he says.

Performing musical theater since the age of 9, Scales says when he discovered songwriting it expanded his horizons with music. It was just something cool that he loved doing. “You start in one direction and then find someplace else,” he says. “Before you know it you look up and someone says your song sounds really good.”