Welcome to the Cheryl Arena Band website!

Cheryl Arena grew up in the Boston area. She loved music from an early age and played several instruments before settling on the harmonica as her main focus, which she has been playing since 1987. She spent the first few years honing her skills on harp sitting in the drivers seat of a limousine, on the job, while waiting for clients. In 1989 she started and hosted a blues jam of her own in the south end of Boston at Wally's Café which thrived every Monday night for 3 years. Wally's Café is a notable venue located near Symphony Hall and Berkeley School of Music featuring Jazz every night since the 40's until Cheryl brought the blues in on Mondays. By 1994 she began touring extensively up and down the East Coast and parts of the South including Memphis and Mississippi.

Cheryl's outgoing nature and love for variety brought her the opportunity to start the "Downtown Blues Review" in 1995 which was held every Tuesday night in Boston's Fanueil Hall Marketplace (for 5 years). The night consisted of a 7 piece band that Cheryl put together every week featuring different regional players from the New England blues scene. It was an improvisational variety show of sorts. Some of her guests have included members of the Love Dogs, Toni Lynn Washington, Susan Tedeschi, Mike Welch, James Montgomery, Michelle Wilson, Gordon Beadle, and many many more.

Cheryl's first band has two self-produced CDs to their credit. The first 12 song all original recording is entitled "Time Keeps Rollin" released in 1996 and the second "Juke Joint" was released in 1999 with 13 tunes covering a wide spectrum of Blues in tribute to some of their heroes in the Blues. "Juke Joint" was recorded live in the studio taking the true "no-frills" approach much like the "old days". Both CDs have been reviewed nationally and internationally with high praise.

Cheryl has had the opportunity to share the stage with blues greats such as Jr. Wells, Johnny Clyde Copeland, R.L. Burnside, Honeyboy Edwards, Sonny Rhodes, Pinetop Perkins, Luther "Guitar Jr." Johnson, Johnny Rawls, Big Jack Johnson, Kenny Neal, Bob Margolin, Duke Robillard, Ronnie Earl, Billy Branch, James Montgomery, Smokin' Joe Kubek and Bnois King, Andrew “Jr. Boy” Jones, Buddy Miles, Rock Bottom, Janiva Magness, Debbie Davis, Ann Rabson, Tommy Castro, Candye Kane, Jr. Watson, John Mooney, Anson Funderburgh and Sam Myers.

In January of 2000 at Dave's CC club's annual "Blues Gathering in Honor of Martin Luther King Jr." (held in Tallahassee, Florida), Cheryl’s band was one of the featured acts and at the after fest jam Cheryl was invited up to play with Johnny Rawls. At the end of the 1st song Mr. Rawls exclaimed " Give it up for Cheryl from Mississippi" to which Cheryl piped in and said "I'm from Boston" and Johnny's reply was "You may be from Boston but your heart's from Mississippi!"

Cheryl’s Cd “BLUES GOT ME” was produced by Duke Robillard who also makes a guest appearance on 2 tracks. The CD consists of 13 tracks, 7 of which were written by Cheryl.

On the 1st track, “Blow My Blues Away”, Cheryl expresses her desire to move south of the Mason Dixon line…well she’s recently realized that dream and relocated to Dallas Texas.

Why Dallas? Well after meeting Andrew Jr. Boy Jones while on tour in Florida and lamenting to him about the lack of work up north, clubs closing etc. and just being tired of the brutal winters…
Andrew suggested coming to Dallas. He said “there’s nobody like you in Dallas and I think you would do well there”…He was right!

In 2005 Cheryl moved to Dallas Texas finally realizing her dream of moving south to a warmer climate and finding more music work. Cheryl is working with several bands in the DFW Metroplex.

Since moving to Dallas she recorded a live CD with Andrew Jr. Boy Jones for the 43rd BIG IDEA record label which was released on Feb. 17th 2006. Some intense touring was done to promote the CD, starting with a month long tour of the Northeast and Midwest…starting in Pennsylvania and ending in Chicago at Buddy Guy’s Legends where Cheryl received a standing ovation! She also recorded on two tracks on Jim Suhler's latest Cd,Tijuana Bible, which was released in the spring of 2007.

Cheryl has also teamed up with local guitarist singer songwriter Aaron Burton to fulfill her dream of playing the real old school, back porch country style blues. In this genre she really gets to show her wares on harmonica as well as singing the old stylings of the likes of Bessie Smith, Memphis Minnie, Billie Holliday and many more.   Aaron and Cheryl released their first Cd, GOOD OLD WAGON, in April of 2006 and it is available via this website and at the gigs.

She is also hiring some of the top talent in town to back her up on her own gigs which feature Cheryl singing and playing a variety of Blues from Swing and Jump to down and dirty Chicago and Texas style blues. She has  had the pleasure of teaming up with local guitar slingers like Holland K. Smith, Texas Slim & The Love Machine, Hashbrown and Shawn Pittman  for some Smokin’ Hot Electric Blues!

At the KNON 89.3FM 7th annual Blues Festival on Jan. 29, 2006, Cheryl played 3 slots…opening with Aaron Burton, then playing with the Holland K. Smith band and finally headlining with Andrew Jr. Boy Jones.
She was also invited to sit in on KNON DJ, Blue Lisa’s set. Consequently, Don O. of KNON voted Cheryl MVP for the day…

“Moving to Dallas Texas has been the best decision I ever made!” – Cheryl Arena

Cheryl Arena: cheryl@cherylarena.com