Allen Holmes has played music most of his life.  He began playing piano as a young child and as a teen played an electric rhodes piano and trombone in a jazz big band.  He began playing harmonica at age 17.  After a few years of playing, he studied harmonica with Phil Wiggins and Charlie Sayles at the Augusta Heritage Center in West Virginia.  Allen specialized in playing the diatonic harmonica chromatically after participating in the 1998 Chapel Harmonica Summit with Howard Levy.  More recently, Allen has studied traditional blues harmonica styles.  He has begun recording original music in this vein and draws upon chords and doublestops.

Allen has been a performer, arranger, and instructor at festivals since 1998 including the SPAH and Buckeye harmonica festivals.  He released a recording of jazz standards called Doris in Mind in 1999 which features the vocals of Alison Radcliffe.   Allen now plays the stand-up bass, harmonica, and sings simultaneously as a one man band playing blues, jazz, and gospel.  He continues to play with Alison Radcliffe and can be heard at various venues locally in the Washington DC area as well as across the country.