Multi-instrumentalist Sleepy Bones Allison took up guitar when he was five. Primarily self-taught, he specialized early in blues music, particularly in the style of the late Stevie Ray Vaughan. He now plays and writes music across a range of genres, from blues to bluegrass, rock to pop, folk to gospel, with guitar as his primary instrument but also on mandolin, violin, bass and some keys. (His mother claims that if something has strings, he can play it.)

In addition to SRV, his early influences include Eric Clapton, B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Robert Cray, and Craig Erickson. More recent inspiration comes from Billy Strings, Molly Tuttle and classic bluegrass performers such as Bill Monroe, Ricky Skaggs, and the Dillards, as well as early country performers such as Hank Williams.

He also interprets a #1 hit song from each year the Hot 100 chart has existed, a tour that has taken him through the music of Stevie Wonder, Bill Withers, Jim Croce, Simon and Garfunkel, Ritchie Valens and Los Lobos, Marvin Gaye, the Rolling Stones, Mariah Carey, Ricky Nelson, George Michael, and many others.

In addition, Sleepy Bones writes his own numbers, such as the early slow-blues lament “Too Young to Play the Blues” and the harder-driving “Wasting Time.” He also adapts other pieces, bending genres to produce, for example, a bluegrass version of Sabrina Carpenter’s “Please, Please, Please.” His annual Christmas videos frequently include him playing multiple instruments as he reinterprets traditional songs. (Here is a jaunty version of “Swingle Bells” and a very dramatic “Carol of the Bells” inspired by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra.)

Sleepy has performed at the Iowa State Fair, the Chicago House of Blues, Reggie’s Rock House, Famous Dave’s at Calhoun Square, Wilebski’s Blues Saloon, and The Redstone Room, as well as other venues and festivals around Iowa. He has appeared multiple times at the Cherokee Jazz and Blues Festival, in Two Harbors, MN, and in Thunder Bay, Canada.

His music can be found on YouTube (more polished videos or quick-and-dirty ones), Facebook, and TikTok under Sleepy Bones Allison. In his non-music life, he is a Ph.D. student in physics.