Blair Crimmins began his current music career in Atlanta, Georgia, with a drive to bring Ragtime and 1920’s style Dixieland Jazz to new audiences. While playing small rock clubs around the Southeast he developed a sound that is at once modern while being deeply rooted in the past. He has toured the U.S and Italy playing festivals and has opened for acts such as Preservation Hall Jazz Band and Old Crow Medicine show. A multi-instrumentalist on guitar, banjo and piano, Crimmins writes songs and arrangements for a classic New Orleans style horn section consisting of trumpet, clarinet and trombone. His debut release “The Musical Stylings Of” became a college radio sensation on WRAS Atlanta making him the most requested band on the air. In 2012 Crimmins showed his musical diversity by writing and recording the full score for the independent short film “Old Man Cabbage”. The following year, Crimmins was the critics pick for Best Song Writer of 2013 in Creative Loafing’s Best of ATL issue. His next album entitled Sing-a-longs! earned him a nomination at The Georgia Music Awards for Best Jazz Artist. After years of relentless touring the country and abroad Blair Crimmins released his 4th album of original ragtime music You Gotta Sell Something (2017), as well as a children’s album All Aboard (2019) and a 5th full length record featuring swinging covers of his favorite artists ranging from Louis Armstrong to David Bowie entitled “Okay Boom!” in 2021.
“Atlanta’s genre blending ensemble Blair Crimmins and The Hookers have been creating a sound that is both unique and inspired for years. Crimmins himself began developing it some time ago, honing in on the magic of ragtime and the 1920’s, coupled with some Dixieland jazz. The fourth studio album from Crimmins’ impressive creative mind is due out in February of 2017, and we haven’t been this excited in quite some time.” – Impose Magazine
Best Songwriter “Crimmins has never been more refined than on this year’s Sing-A-Longs CD. If he caters to any genre, it’s one that’s entirely his own, and that’s something a lot of guys with pens and guitars either don’t know how to do, or don’t have the guts to do.” – Creative Loafing
“Blair Crimmins & The Hookers will make a jazzbo out of you. This ain’t your great-grandfather’s ragtime, and Blair Crimmins isn’t any quaint Dixieland revivalist. He’s a rock star — and Sing-A-Longs is a boisterous good time. Swing, Hookers, swing!” – James Man (Ink 19)
“Ragtime and 1920’s Dixieland Jazz have got a champion in Blair Crimmins. Sing-a-Longs is a perpetual motion machine of notes, rhythms and words and, while all albums should be just that, this one proves its worth as it shimmies, shakes, rattles and roars Ragtime.” – The Alternative Root
“The sound evokes the hot jazz, ragtime and blues of the 1920s. Still a rocker at heart, Crimmins’ marriage of these distinct musical worlds wound up creating a timeless niche.” – Creative Loafing
“Blair Crimmins is a time traveler of sorts. He’s a kind of music preservationist seeking to reintroduce the clamor of vaudeville and the wild glamor of speakeasies and jazz to an audience less aware.”- Charleston Scene
“The very first note immediately sends the listener back to a 1920s Vaudeville theatre, where Blair Crimmins intoxicates an audience with his smooth voice and the band supports him with flawlessly appropriate musical accompaniment.”- Performer Magazine
“I was blasted away by a back draft of horns; a saxophone, keyboards, either a tenor or bass trombone accompanied by vocals that ripped space and time while mercilessly sucking me back into the ragtime era. Blair Crimmins possesses your soul like a relentlessly starved demon.” – Silver Tongue
“I can’t believe what I have heard several times now. This man has taken me back to the first conceptions of rocking and rolling. A time when jazz crazy people of the 30’s swung into a big band room. I’m talking about early stuff like Count Basie, Etta James, and early Ray Charles; into later music such as Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, or Elton John.” – Rock Fist Review