Nemeth leads with 5 Blues Music Awards nominations

Singer and harmonica player John Nemeth, vocalist Shemekia Copeland, country blues artist Rory Block, and guitarist Eric Gales are among the top nominees for this year’s Blues Music Awards

Singer and harmonica player John Nemeth, vocalist Shemekia Copeland, country blues artist Rory Block, and guitarist Eric Gales are among the top nominees for this year's Blues Music Awards.

The Blues Foundation on Tuesday released the list of nominees for the 44th installment of the awards, which will be handed out May 11 in Memphis, Tennessee.

Nemeth leads the way with five nominations, including song of the year, band of the year and best traditional blues album.

Block, Copeland and Gales are each nominated for three awards. Block is up for two awards in acoustic music categories, while Copeland and Gales are in the running for song of the year.

Gales is also nominated for the B.B. King Entertainer of the Year Award, along with Sugaray Rayford, Tommy Castro, Bobby Rush and Castro Coleman, also known as Mr. Sipp.

Willie J. Campbell was posthumously nominated in the instrumentalist-bass category. He died in December.

Members of the Memphis-based Blues Foundation vote on the awards.