Hornby Island Blues Workshop

The son of an Alabama sharecropper, the longtime Victoria BC resident is still going strong 50 years after he first stepped on stage with the likes of Big Joe Turner. Long revered as one of the great boogie-woogie piano players, Vest is a six-time winner of Canada's national Maple Blues Award for Piano Player of the Year.

He is also a prolific songwriter. He wrote the first songs ever recorded by Tammy Wynette, and his tunes have been covered by artists ranging from Paul deLay to the legendary Downchild Blues Band, whose cover of Vest's "Worried About The World" gave Downchild their first number one song (Roots Music Report blues song chart).

He played his first paying gig in 1957, and by the time he opened for Roy Orbison on New Year’s Day 1962, he was a seasoned veteran of Gulf Coast roadhouses and honky-tonks. At the age of 17, David went on tour with Jerry Woodard and the Esquires, some of whom later became key members of the Muscle Shoals Swampers. He jammed with Ace Cannon, Bill Black’s Combo and the Jimmy Dorsey Band in clubs along the Florida Panhandle, where fellow Alabaman James Harman would soon make his mark. 

About the time he turned 21 he found himself onstage with Big Joe Turner, who said that David Vest’s playing made him feel like he was back in Kansas City.
Time has done little to diminish David's energy, skill and creative drive. He has said that he intends to continue performing "as long as the flavour lasts." Whether working solo or with his band, or appearing in spectacular "pianorama" shows, he continues to bring audiences to their feet and to demonstrate why he has been called “one of the greatest living boogie-woogie piano players.”