Dennis Herrera is Making a Scene

November 23, 2024

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Making a Scene Presents an Interview with Dennis Herrera

Dennis Herrera was born and raised in San Jose, California just a heartbeat away from San Francisco the home of the hippie generation and Golden Gate Bridge. When asked about his music history Dennis shared, “as a kid in the 60’s I was introduced to rock n roll via the transistor radio by my mom we listened to a pop AM station, KLIV and that planted the music seed. Tuning into The Yardbirds, Animals, Rolling Stones, Beatles, Sam and Dave, Wilson Picket etc. became my favorite pastime. “At age 15 I saw James Brown LIVE and I was blown away!”

At a young age Dennis went to count-less rock & roll, R&B, blues and soul concerts/shows in the Bay Area, San Jose, Oakland, Santa Cruz, San Francisco at the Fillmore, Winterland, Avalon Ballroom, and numerous juke-joint blues clubs. Dennis’ fondly recounts his first guitar given to him by his grandfather, took a handful of guitar lessons and played in garage bands, “We wanted to be rock stars put our first band together and the girls dug it my first ever performance was at my high school, I was flunking music class but in order to pass my teacher suggested I play for the student talent show. Nervously I went on stage and covered the Richie Havens song Freedom from the film Woodstock.

I’ll never forget what a major rush that was and I passed with an straight A!”. Early on Dennis found that his favorite rock groups the Stones, Savoy Brown and original Fleetwood Mac covered songs written by blues greats Willie Dixon, Sonny Boy Williamson, B.B. King, Howling Wolf, John Lee Hooker just to name a few, “It’s been blues ever since struggling to play music as a profession, I found myself re-directed a number of times but have always come back to playing blues, regrettably I didn’t join an established blues band, I have had opportunity but instead chose to lead various blues projects of my own to date, I’ve tried a variety of catchy band names thinking they were original but soon found out most were taken, so I simply settled with my birth name for the band”. Dennis Herrera has recorded 3 CD’s and continues to perform his original blues as well as his favorites for well over 30 years in and around the state.