David Bennett Cohen is an American musician best known as the original keyboardist

Keyboardist

A keyboardist is a musician who plays keyboard instruments. Until the early 1960s musicians who played keyboards were generally classified as either pianists or organists. Since the mid-1960s, a plethora of new musical instruments with keyboards have come into common usage, requiring a more...

 for the late-1960s psychedelic rock

Psychedelic rock

Psychedelic rock is a style of rock music that is inspired or influenced by psychedelic culture and attempts to replicate and enhance the mind-altering experiences of psychedelic drugs. It emerged during the mid 1960s among folk rock and blues rock bands in United States and the United Kingdom...

 and blues

Blues

Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...

 band Country Joe and the Fish

Country Joe and the Fish

Country Joe and the Fish was a rock band most widely known for musical protests against the Vietnam War, from 1966 to 1971, and also regarded as a seminal influence to psychedelic rock.-History:...

.

Early Life and Influences

Cohen's musical career began at age seven, when he began seven years of classical

Classical music

Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...

 piano

Piano

The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...

 training. He also learned to play guitar

Guitar

The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...

 at age nine. When he was fourteen, Cohen heard boogie-woogie

Boogie-woogie (music)

Boogie-woogie is a style of piano-based blues that became popular in the late 1930s and early 1940s, but originated much earlier, and was extended from piano, to three pianos at once, guitar, big band, and country and western music, and even gospel. Whilst the blues traditionally depicts a variety...

 piano for the first time, and from then on his playing was influenced by boogie-woogie, as well as piano blues

Piano blues

Piano blues refers to a variety of blues styles, sharing only the characteristic that they use the piano as the primary musical instrument. Boogie woogie is the best known kind of piano blues, though barrelhouse, swing, R&B, rock and roll and jazz are strongly influenced by early pianists who...

. When he was young Cohen attended live performances of Otis Spann

Otis Spann

Otis Spann was an American blues musician, who many consider the leading postwar Chicago blues pianist.-Career:Born in Jackson, Mississippi, United States, Spann became known for his distinct piano style....

, Professor Longhair

Professor Longhair

Professor Longhair was a New Orleans blues singer and pianist...

, Meade Lux Lewis

Meade Lux Lewis

Meade Lux Lewis was a American pianist and composer, noted for his work in the boogie-woogie style. His best known work, "Honky Tonk Train Blues", has been recorded in various contexts, often in a big band arrangement...

 among others.

Career

During his career, Cohen has played and/or recorded with The Blues Project, Mick Taylor

Mick Taylor

Michael Kevin "Mick" Taylor is an English musician, best known as a former member of John Mayall's Bluesbreakers and The Rolling Stones...

, Luther Tucker

Luther Tucker

For the publisher see The Genesee FarmerLuther Tucker was an American blues guitarist.While soft spoken and shy, Tucker made his presence known through his unique and clearly recognizable guitar style. Tucker helped to define the music known as Chicago Blues, but played everything from blues to...

, Elvin Bishop

Elvin Bishop

Elvin Bishop is an American blues and rock and roll musician and guitarist.-Career:Bishop was born in Glendale, California, and grew up on a farm near Elliott, Iowa. His family moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma, when he was ten years old...

, Hubert Sumlin

Hubert Sumlin

Hubert Sumlin is an American Chicago blues and electric blues guitarist and singer, best known for his celebrated work, from 1955, as guitarist in Howlin' Wolf's band. His singular playing is characterized by "wrenched, shattering bursts of notes, sudden cliff-hanger silences and daring rhythmic...

, Melvin Van Peebles

Melvin Van Peebles

Melvin "Block" Van Peebles is an American actor, director, screenwriter, playwright, novelist and composer.He is most famous for creating the acclaimed film, Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, which heralded a new era of African American focused films...

, Happy and Artie Traum, Arlen Roth

Arlen Roth

Arlen Roth is an American guitarist. His first solo album won the Montreaux Critics' Award for Best Instrumental Album of the Year in 1978. He was Guitar Player magazine's top columnist from 1982 to 1992...

, Eric Anderson

Eric Anderson

Eric Anderson may refer to:* Eric Anderson , British educator* Eric Anderson , English soldier, recipient of the Victoria Cross* Eric Anderson , American basketball player...

, David Blue, Tim Hardin

Tim Hardin

James Timothy "Tim" Hardin was an American folk musician and composer. He wrote the Top 40 hits "If I Were a Carpenter", covered by, among others, Joan Baez, Bobby Darin, Johnny Cash, Ramblin' Jack Elliot, and Robert Plant, and "Reason to Believe", covered by many, including Rod Stewart, as well...

, Norton Buffalo

Norton Buffalo

Norton Buffalo was a singer-songwriter, country and blues harmonica player, record producer, bandleader and recording artist best known as a versatile exponent of the harmonica, including chromatic and diatonic....

, Jerry Miller

Jerry Miller

Jerry Miller is an American songwriter, guitarist and vocalist. He performs as a solo artist and as a member of the Jerry Miller Band. He is also a founding member of the 1960s San Francisco band Moby Grape, which continues to perform occasionally...

, Jimi Hendrix

Jimi Hendrix

James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter...

, Johnny Winter

Johnny Winter

John Dawson "Johnny" Winter III is an American blues guitarist, singer, and producer. Best known for his late 1960s and 1970s high-energy blues-rock albums and live performances, Winter also produced three Grammy Award-winning albums for blues legend Muddy Waters...

, Buddy Miles

Buddy Miles

George Allen Miles, Jr. , known as Buddy Miles, was an American rock and funk drummer, most known as a founding member of The Electric Flag in 1967, then as a member of Jimi Hendrix's Band of Gypsys from 1969 through to January 1970.-Early life:George Allen Miles was born in Omaha, Nebraska on...

, John Cipollina

John Cipollina

John Cipollina was a guitarist best known for his role as a founder and the lead guitarist of the prominent San Francisco rock band Quicksilver Messenger Service...

, Huey Lewis

Huey Lewis

Huey Lewis is an American musician, songwriter and occasional actor.Lewis sings lead and plays harmonica for his band Huey Lewis and the News, in addition to writing or co-writing many of the band's songs...

, Michael Bloomfield

Mike Bloomfield

Michael Bernard "Mike" Bloomfield was an American musician, guitarist, and composer, born in Chicago, Illinois, who became one of the first popular music superstars of the 1960s to earn his reputation almost entirely on his instrumental prowess, since he rarely sang before 1969–70...

, Bob Weir

Bob Weir

Bob Weir is an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist, most recognized as a founding member of the Grateful Dead. After the Grateful Dead disbanded in 1995, Weir performed with The Other Ones, later known as The Dead, together with other former members of the Grateful Dead...

, Country Joe McDonald

Country Joe McDonald

Country Joe McDonald is an American musician who was the lead singer of the 1960s psychedelic rock group Country Joe and the Fish.-Personal life:...

, John Kahn

John Kahn

John Kahn was an American rock bass player. For a period of about twenty five years Kahn was Jerry Garcia's principal collaborator outside of the Grateful Dead.-Biography:...

, Johnnie Johnson

Johnnie Johnson

Johnnie Johnson may refer to:*Johnnie Johnson *Johnnie Johnson *Johnnie Johnson See also:*Johnny Johnson *John Johnson...

, Jimmy Vivino

Jimmy Vivino

Jimmy Vivino is an American guitarist, keyboard player, singer, producer, and music director. He is best known as the leader of Jimmy Vivino and the Basic Cable Band, the house band for the TBS late night program Conan...

, Jay Owens, Debbie Davies

Debbie Davies

Debbie Davies is an American blues guitarist.She has been the featured guitarist in several female based bands including Maggie Mayall and the Cadillacs , and Fingers Taylor and the Ladyfinger Revue...

, Byther Smith

Byther Smith

Byther Smith is an American blues musician, noted for his gritty style and uncompromising delivery.-Career:...

, Bobby Kyle, Rocky Lawrence, Johnny B. Gayden, Sandra Feva, Kenny Rankin

Kenny Rankin

Kenny Rankin was an American pop and jazz singer and songwriter, originally from the Washington Heights neighborhood of New York City, New York.-Biography:...

, Bonnie Raitt

Bonnie Raitt

Bonnie Lynn Raitt is an American blues singer-songwriter and a renowned slide guitar player. During the 1970s, Raitt released a series of acclaimed roots-influenced albums which incorporated elements of blues, rock, folk and country, but she is perhaps best known for her more commercially...

, Richard Thompson, Jerry Garcia

Jerry Garcia

Jerome John "Jerry" Garcia was an American musician best known for his lead guitar work, singing and songwriting with the band the Grateful Dead...

, Leo Kottke

Leo Kottke

Leo Kottke is an acoustic guitarist. He is widely known for his innovative fingerpicking style, which draws on influences from blues, jazz, and folk music, and his syncopated, polyphonic melodies...

, Rufus Thomas

Rufus Thomas

Rufus Thomas, Jr. was an American rhythm and blues, funk and soul singer and comedian fromMemphis, Tennessee, who recorded on Sun Records in the...

, Meat Loaf

Meat Loaf

Michael Lee Aday , better known by his stage name, Meat Loaf, is an American hard rock musician and actor...

, Booker T. Jones

Booker T. Jones

Booker T. Jones is a multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, record producer and arranger, best known as the frontman of the band Booker T. and the MGs. He has also worked in the studios with many well-known artists of the 20th and 21st centuries, earning him a Grammy Award for lifetime...

, The Roches

The Roches

The Roches are a female vocal group of three songwriting Irish-American sisters from Park Ridge, New Jersey, known for their "unusual" and "rich" harmonies, quirky lyrics, and casually comedic stage performances.The Roches have been active as performers and recording artists since the mid-1970s,...

, Kingfish

Kingfish

-Fish:* King mackerel Scomberomorus cavalla* Kingcroaker Menticirrhus spp.* Narrow-barred Spanish mackerel Scomberomorus commerson * White croaker Genyonemus lineatus * Cobia Rachycentron canadum...

, The J. Geils Band, Magic Dick

Magic Dick

Richard "Magic Dick" Salwitz was the harmonica player for The J. Geils Band. In addition to the harmonica, Salwitz plays the trumpet and saxophone. He attended Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, Massachusetts, where he met John "J" Geils and Danny Klein and became a founding member of...

and many others.