The authoritative voice of Bob Porter is familiar to radio listeners across the country from his syndicated broadcasts of Portraits in Blue, the in-depth series he launched at WBGO in Newark, New Jersey, in 1981. Porter, one of America’s leading experts on the blues, and especially on the junctures of blues with jazz, has also produced, preserved, and documented the music in the recording studio, in print, and in presentations at festivals and seminars. Born in Wellesley, Massachusetts, on June 20, 1940, Porter has produced jazz and blues sessions for Prestige, Muse, and other labels since the 1960s in addition to compiling and annotating extensive reissue sets for companies such as Atlantic, Savoy and Rhino. Porter has also donated his energy and knowledge to organizations such as The Blues Foundation and the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. He has worked with Eddie Cleanhead Vinson, Big Joe Turner, Helen Humes, Roomful of Blues, Hank Crawford, Gene Ammons, Charles Earland, and others in the studio, and is authoring Soul Jazz: A History of Jazz in the Black Community 1945-1975 for Oxford University Press.
