Henry Gray
Henry Gray, who played piano in the Howlin' Wolf band and other Chicago blues groups before returning to his native Louisiana in 1968, was rarely in the spotlight, but he steadily built an impressive resume [...]
Willie Johnson
Willie Johnson (1923-1995) recorded only a few songs on his own, but as a sideman his storming barrage of distortion and incendiary guitar licks in the 1950s, especially on the early records of Howlin' Wolf, [...]
Latimore
Latimore, the abbreviated stage name of singer, keyboardist and a songwriter Benny Latimore, has cut a dashing figure on the Southern soul circuit ever since he began touring the 1970s on the strength of hits [...]
Magic Slim
Magic Slim led one of the most relentless, hard-driving bands in Chicago blues history for several decades until his death in 2013. Born Morris Holt in Mississippi in 1937, he earned his nickname from his [...]
Mavis Staples
Mavis Staples, one of America's premier singers of gospel and soul music, has expanded her musical mastery with her performances in more blues-based settings in recent years. The blues is nothing new to the Staples [...]
Amy van Singel
Amy van Singel, known to blues radio audiences as "Atomic Mama," was a cofounder of Living Blues magazine in Chicago in 1970. She and her former husband Jim O'Neal published the magazine from their home [...]
Father of the Blues – W.C. Handy (De Capo, 1941)
Father of the Blues by W.C. Handy is a monumental opus that is indispensable to the study of American musical history. Published in 1941, the book traces Handy’s background as a trained orchestra leader, his [...]
Real Folk Blues – John Lee Hooker (Chess, 1966)
The 1966 John Lee Hooker album Real Folk Blues is the latest of several Chess Records’ Real Folk Blues albums to be elected to the Blues Hall of Fame. Whereas the rest of the LPs [...]
“Bo Diddley” – Bo Diddley (Checker, 1955)
“Bo Diddley” was not only the 1955 hit record that made Ellas McDaniel famous – it also gave him his professional name. The famed “Bo Diddley beat,” an energized update of the old “Hambone” rhythm, [...]
“Hi-Heel Sneakers” – Tommy Tucker (Chess, 1963)
“Hi-Heel Sneakers” by Tommy Tucker was the last blues record from the mighty Chess Records catalogue to hit No. 1 on the charts. Recorded in New York in 1963, the single on Chess’ Checker subsidiary [...]