8 Ball Aitken & Taya Chani - Memphis Blues Challenge Fundraiser

Winning BASEQ act  8 Ball Aitken & Taya Chani are having a free entry Memphis Blues Challenge Fundraiser on Saturday November 22nd at the Koala Hotel. 
 
Two heavyweights of the Australian soul-blues-rock scene 8 Ball Aitken & Taya Chani have teamed up with a new collaboration album Nightbird. Together with drummer Nik Downing and bassist Norman Baquiran, theyve won a trip to Memphis to represent the Blues Association of South-East Queensland at the International Blues Challenge in January 2026. It is expensive to move a band across the world and accommodate them for a week. This gig is help them on their way. 
 
8 Ball Aitken performed around the world for more than a decade across twenty countries to date. 8 Ball moved to Nashville, Tennessee, USA in 2012 and worked for nine years with many of the best in the blues and roots business today. He won second place in the 2021 International New Orleans Cigar Box Guitar Festival. He relocated back to Australia at the end of 2020.
Soul-blues singer Taya Chani released her debut album 'Restless Heart' widespread airplay and rave reviews in 2019. In 2023, the duo released their first collaboration, Only Guiding Light from album Ice Cream Man 2 that hit #1 on the Australian Blues & Roots Charts.
8 Ball and Tayas mutual love for Southern American music, blues, country, soul and fancy jazz chords brought them together. Whilst on their first Australian tour in 2022, they began co-writing songs. They realised very quickly that they had an album worth if songs and set a studio date.  
The cast of musicians on the new Nightbird album include USA saxophone legend Buddy Leach (George Thorogood & The Destroyers), drummer extraordinaire Declan Kelly, and 8 Balls younger brother Dillion James Aitken on keys.
8 Ball Aitken & Taya Chani are touring Australia for the rest of the year on the Nightbird Album Tour.