Led by the slowhand licks and stomping boogies of Todor 'Tosco' Todorov, The Blues Company are the longest-running blues-rock band in Germany and have released more than 25 albums and played 4,000 gigs over the last 40 years. Todorov's family fled from Yugoslavia at the end of World War II, and despite playing in his father's folk orchestra and studying classical music, it was the blues of Muddy Waters, BB King and Eric Clapton which really captured his imagination and became his lifelong musical obsession.
Forming the band with drummer Christian Rannenberg in the northern German town of Osnabruck in 1976, they cut their teeth supporting touring American acts and broke new ground when they became one of the first professional blues bands in the country. They released their first live recordings in 1980, but really started to cross over when they signed with the label In-Akustik in 1988 and honed their smooth, soaring solos and soulful grooves on albums 'So What?' and 'Damn! Let's Jam'.
A collaboration with San Francisco bluesman Johnny Heartsman on 'Made in Germany' in 1995 further built their reputation, before they gave their beloved Fender Telecaster electric guitars a rest and went unplugged and acoustic on 'The Quiet Side' in 2005. They also had their track 'Blue and Lonesome' used on the soundtrack to Hollywood movie 'LA Blues' in 2007 and have won three German Record Critic Awards for 'O Town Grooves' in 2010, 'X-Ray Blues' in 2014 and 'Aint Nothing But' in 2015.
Todorov went on to become a lecturer at the Music Institute at the Osnabruck University, but continued to be a regular at the local jam sessions held at the Lagerhalle warehouse bar, and was still leading The Blues Company as they released new album 'Old, New, Borrowed But Blues' in 2016.
