Guitar, Resonator Guitar, Blues, Slide, Fingerstyle
Donna teaches all levels of students from beginners to advanced players. She teaches classes in the Core Guitar Program and also Acoustic Slide Guitar.
Donna began playing guitar at the age of 10, and in high school, played in rock bands and studied jazz guitar. She took two years of classical guitar in college. At the Old Town School of Folk Music, she took Blues Fingerstyle 3 numerous times and learned to play Delta blues, Piedmont, country blues, ragtime, and slide guitar styles.
Donna is an accomplished guitar player and singer and was cited in Acoustic Guitar Magazine’s May 2016 issue as one of the top 10 “up and coming resonator players.” She was the headliner at the Durban International Blues Festival in South Africa and performed as a soloist or in a duet at the Chicago Blues Festival three times – including performing solo centennial celebration tributes for Robert Nighthawk, Johnny Shines, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe.
She was the co-winner of the Windy City Blues Society Blues Challenge twice and represented Chicago at the International Blues Challenge in Memphis, Tennessee. She was a semi-finalist in the Yamaha Six String Theory international guitar competition.
Donna was inducted into the Chicago Blues Hall of Fame on October 16, 2016 at Buddy Guy’s Legends in Chicago. Donna is a regular performer at Buddy Guy’s Legends in Chicago and has opened for Buddy Guy multiple times. She has performed numerous times in the Deep South including at the King Biscuit Blues Festival and at the Delta Cultural Center in Helena, Arkansas.
Donna enjoys teaching guitar and performing educational programs about blues history and traditional blues artists with her husband, Tony. She has taught guitar classes or workshops at libraries, folk conference, folk clubs, blues and roots festivals, blues camps, blues foundations, colleges, and music stores.
Her musical influences include Son House, Muddy Waters, and Johnny Winter.
Donna’s highly acclaimed May 2021 release “Bang at the Door” rose to #1 on the Blues Music Chart (Roots Music Report) and has been nominated for Best Acoustic Blues Album of the year by Blues Blast Magazine!
Started at the Old Town School in December of 2015
- https://donnaherula.com/
