R.L. Burnside
R.L. Burnside was a champion of Mississippi Hill Country blues who was able to energize rock audiences just as he did local juke joint revelers. He achieved crossover success by attracting a cult following among [...]
Eddie Shaw
Eddie Shaw had an unparalleled career as a Chicago blues saxophonist/bandleader in a city where guitar, harmonica and piano players have long ruled the roost. A multiple Blues Music Award winner and perpetual nominee in [...]
Earl Hooker
Earl Hooker was the 'blues guitarists' guitarist,' the most respected six-string wizard in Chicago blues musicians' circles during the 1950s and '60s. A cousin of John Lee Hooker and a protege of slide guitar master [...]
Jody Williams
Jody Williams, one of the hottest and most creative guitarists in Chicago during the 1950s, put his guitar down in disgust with the music business in the ’60s. His return to action some three decades [...]
Otis Clay
Otis Clay, who has carried the banner of deep soul music in Chicago since the 1960s, has never been a blues singer in the traditional sense, but he became a favorite on the blues circuit [...]
Joe Louis Walker
Joe Louis Walker's heralded artistry has kept him at the forefront of the blues ever since his remarkable debut album, Cold is the Night, was released in 1986. A San Francisco native, born on Christmas [...]
Dream Boogie: The Triumph of Sam Cooke – Peter Guralnick (Little, Brown and Company, 2005)
Dream Boogie is the fourth book by Peter Guralnick, America's premier music biographer, to attain Blues Hall of Fame status. In this meticulously researched and detailed 750-page opus, Guralnick delves into the mind, music and [...]
Hawk Squat – J.B. Hutto (Delmark, 1969)
In his liner notes to Hawk Squat! (Delmark DS-617), producer Bob Koester called J.B. Hutto and the Hawks 'the most exciting, roughest blues band in Chicago,' and he set out to capture the Hutto sound [...]
“After Hours” – Erskine Hawkins and His Orchestra (Bluebird 1940)
As a counterpoint to the boogie woogie piano craze of the era, trumpeter-bandleader Erskine Hawkins turned pianist Avery Parrish loose to wax a slow, atmospheric instrumental blues on a June 10, 1940, session in New [...]
“Catfish Blues” – Robert Petway (Bluebird 1941)
Delta blues guitarist Robert Petway helped establish an enduring downhome blues theme with his March 28, 1941, recording of 'Catfish Blues' in Chicago (Bluebird B8838). Many other bluesmen have since sung their own renditions of [...]