Brian Leroy Kumbalek – better known to blues lovers around the world as Bryan Lee or Braille Blues Daddy – enjoyed a lifelong music career that included a Grammy nomination and traveling the globe, ultimately spending his last years in Sarasota-Manatee.
Kumbalek died Friday at Tidewell Hospice House in Sarasota after battling various lung, heart and kidney issues. He was 77.
Before moving to Bradenton in the mid-2010s, the blind blues guitarist and singer had lived in New Orleans since the ’80s and became ingrained in the city’s music scene, playing Bourbon Street venues and New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. He was also known for his work with blues star Kenny Wayne Shepherd, including appearing on the 2010 Shepherd Band record “Live! in Chicago,” earning Kumbalek a Contemporary Blues Album Grammy nomination.
“The blues community lost a legend, and I lost a dear friend and mentor,” Shepherd posted on his Instagram. “Bryan Lee gave me my first shot on a stage in front of an audience on Bourbon Street in New Orleans when I was 13 years old. I was meant to play only two songs with his band, but after the first song was done, Bryan wouldn’t let me get off the stage until all his sets were done and it was nearly 4 a.m. That night began a lifelong friendship for me that I can’t place a value on.”
Born March 16, 1943 in Two Rivers, Wisconsin, Kumbalek was legally blind by 8 years old and performing professionally by the time he was in his teens. Ted Fordney, who played bass in his band, said his first memory of Kumbalek was as a fifth grader living in the same area of Wisconsin, with Kumbalek visiting his elementary school to tune the pianos. Fordney would later see him perform live several times, and during a 2015 trip to Longboat Key, attended a Braille Blues Daddy show at the old Ace’s in Bradenton and sat in with him.
Kumbalek’s wife Bethany met her future husband when she went to see him perform at a venue in Fort Myers Beach, where she was living in the area at the time. The conversation turned to their shared experience of growing up in Wisconsin.
“We held hands before we left, and he said that he knew at that moment when he held my hand that we would have a future together,” Bethany said by phone Tuesday.
Bethany said the best years of their lives were traveling together to locales such as Svalbard, between the North Pole and Norway, and Sao Paulo, Brazil. She also attended the Grammys with him, and toured with him for a week while he was playing with Shepherd and other blues legends like Hubert Sumlin and Pinetop Perkins.
Once they moved from New Orleans to Bradenton, the couple’s favorite things to do included visiting the beach and their favorite local music venues, including The Blue Rooster in Sarasota. Blue Rooster owner Bill Cornelius called him “a real pro, one of the last real bluesmen.”
Kumbalek earned a Blues Music Award nomination for his 2007 record “Katrina Was Her Name.” His latest release was 2018’s “Sanctuary,” a blues-gospel album that indicated his deep religious beliefs.
No matter what obstacles Kumbalek faced, Bethany said, he always approached life with a positive attitude.
“He was so grateful for the little things, like the taste of the grapefruit from Mixon Fruit Farms,” Bethany said. “He loved that grapefruit juice and he just savored it, every sip. The noise of the birds in the morning, he would just sit and listen. The taste of coffee and food – he didn’t take anything for granted.”
His funeral is scheduled for 10 a.m. today at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Bradenton. The ceremony will be streamed on his Facebook page facebook.com/bryanleebraillebluesdaddy.