Madrid beginnings and a first working band
Quique Gómez began playing harmonica at eighteen and formed his first band at twenty. Juan Bourbon, Juan Scotch & Juan Beer became his main performing vehicle through years of work on Spanish stages. During that period he also studied and ran a small club. Singing, harmonica and the practical business of presenting live music developed together, giving him experience beyond the instrumental role for which many blues listeners first knew him.
Guitarist Curro Serrano was an important early partner. Their association continued beyond the larger band into acoustic work, eventually producing Quique Gómez & Curro Serrano Vol. 1 in 2017. That recording explored older blues and related music with acoustic guitar, twelve-string guitar and dobro, while Gómez contributed voice, harmonica and other string instruments. It offered a smaller, more flexible setting than the electric bands that also became central to his career.
Chicago encounters and international partnerships
Gómez first visited Chicago in 2008. The trip led to recurring work with musicians from the city’s blues community and helped turn an interest in American music into direct professional relationships. John Primer, Eddie C. Campbell, Bob Stroger, Jimmy Burns, Tail Dragger and Rockin’ Johnny Burgin were among the artists with whom his career subsequently intersected. He began performing on both sides of the Atlantic, sometimes supporting visiting American singers in Europe and sometimes joining musicians in the United States.
His partnership with Italian guitarist Luca Giordano produced Dead Mama Blues, recorded in Italy in 2009, and 3011 Studio Sessions, made in Chicago in 2012. He also recorded Bahia Times with Brazilian guitarist Netto Rockfeller. These collaborations placed his harmonica in different bands while maintaining a strong connection to Chicago blues. They helped establish a working pattern based on continuing partnerships across national scenes.
The shared album Do the Siesta brought him together with singer Lorenzo Thompson, José Luis Pardo and Big Yuyu. Songs for Muddy paired him with Pardo and Willie Buck. Rather than developing only through records under his own name, Gómez built a catalog through these collaborative sessions, supporting singers and exchanging ideas with guitarists whose phrasing left different kinds of space for his harmonica.
The Vipers and Dealin' With the Blues
Dealin’ With the Blues presented Gómez with his regular band, the Vipers. The Sweet Records album was recorded in Madrid and mastered by Kid Andersen in California. The band included guitarists Curro Serrano and Pablo Sanpa, bassist Héctor Rojo and drummer Guillaume Destarac, with Javier Díaz adding keyboards on three selections.
Its twelve songs drew on blues, jazz and soul. Roy Brown’s “Good Rockin’ Tonight,” Willie Dixon’s “Too Late,” Jimmy Rogers’ “Gold Tailed Bird” and Muddy Waters’ “Honey Bee” formed part of the program. “Sugar Ray,” associated with the jazz repertoire, gave Gómez an opportunity to use chromatic harmonica. Marvin Gaye’s “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)” extended the selection into soul.
The repertoire shows how he approaches a bandleader’s role: the voice introduces material from several related traditions, and the harmonica becomes another melodic part within the arrangement. His clear baritone and Chicago-style harmonica share the foreground. The guitars also received substantial room, making the record a useful introduction to the Vipers as an ensemble rather than a harmonica feature with anonymous accompaniment.
Dos Hombres Wanted with Johnny Burgin
Released in 2019 through VizzTone, Dos Hombres Wanted joined Gómez with Rockin’ Johnny Burgin. Most of the album was recorded at Alnico Recording Studio in Austin, with Christian Dozzler on piano and accordion, Eric Przygocki on bass and Stephen Dougherty on drums. Three tracks came from an earlier session in Toledo, Spain, with David Salvador Fructuoso and Pablo Bárez del Cueto. Kid Andersen mixed and mastered the album at Greaseland.
Gómez contributed “Take It Like It Is” and “Otro Hombre,” the latter sung in Spanish. Burgin supplied much of the original material, and the pair also included songs associated with Robert Lockwood Jr. and Tampa Red. The writing made the partnership more than an exercise in interpreting familiar standards. It allowed both musicians to bring material shaped by their own performing experience.
The album also placed Gómez’s singing alongside Burgin’s, giving the listener two front-line voices as well as the exchange between guitar and harmonica. His Spanish-language contribution was especially distinctive within a project grounded in Chicago blues. The sessions connected American and Spanish working bands without requiring the participants to share one permanent touring lineup.
Little Charlie Baty and Cookin' at Greaseland
Gómez’s work in California led to a recording partnership with Little Charlie Baty, co-founder of Little Charlie & the Nightcats. Their sessions at Greaseland in San Jose paired Baty’s guitar with Gómez’s voice and harmonica. Kid Andersen and drummer Alexander Pettersen completed the small group. They recorded together in 2019, before Baty’s death.
Cookin’ at Greaseland eventually appeared through Gulf Coast Records in 2024. The release brought the session to a wider audience after earlier plans had been interrupted. Its combination of jump material, slower blues and close instrumental interplay suited both Gómez’s jazz interests and Baty’s guitar vocabulary. Andersen’s production kept the focus on the musicians responding to one another within a compact band.
The project continued Gómez’s interest in finding a particular musical conversation with a guitarist. Serrano’s acoustic playing, Burgin’s Chicago approach and Baty’s blues-and-jazz fluency called for different responses. Gómez’s role remained recognizable through his singing and harmonica, while each partnership changed the surrounding texture and repertoire.
Swing singing, teaching and later projects
Alongside his blues bands, Gómez sings with the Bob Sands Big Band. That work draws on the swing-era repertoire associated with Frank Sinatra, Count Basie and Thad Jones and places him before a large ensemble. It gives a different scale to the phrasing and vocal projection heard in his smaller groups. He sometimes sets the harmonica aside entirely in this setting.
Teaching has also become a continuing part of his work. Since 2009 he has directed the intensive blues course in Béjar, bringing his international performing experience into a Spanish educational setting. His influence is especially tangible in those activities: organizing opportunities to learn, connecting musicians and carrying songs between working bands.
In 2024, Gómez announced recording projects with guitarists Tim Lerch and Duke Robillard. In 2025, he joined keyboard player Joe Tatton in a quartet engagement in Béjar. These activities extend the breadth already present in his catalog, from acoustic blues to small electric bands and swing singing. The common thread is an interest in melody, vocal delivery and ensemble exchange, developed through sustained work with partners rather than through a single fixed band sound.