Buddy & Ella Johnson
Buddy & Ella Johnson formed one of the most successful brother-sister teams in the history of rhythm & blues and big band music. Although their music is unfamiliar to many blues and R&B fans today, [...]
Furry Lewis
Furry Lewis was one of the foremost figures in Memphis blues, both during the 1920s when he made his first recordings and again during the blues revival of the '60s and '70s. Lewis was born [...]
Frank Stokes
Frank Stokes, a muscular blacksmith, singer and guitarist, is often regarded as the seminal figure in Memphis blues history. His duets with guitarist Dan Sane, his partner in the Beale Street Sheiks, laid a bold [...]
Pervis Spann
Pervis Spann, "The Blues Man" of Chicago radio, has been a major force in promoting the blues over the past four decades. Spann started as a DJ, promoted concerts at the Regal Theater, co-owned one [...]
Horst Lippmann and Fritz Rau
Horst Lippmann and Fritz Rau promoted concerts of all sorts in Europe beginning in the 1950s, but they left their mark in blues history with the groundbreaking American Folk Blues Festival tours of the '60s. [...]
Doc Pomus
Doc Pomus was one of the foremost songwriters of rhythm & blues, pop, and rock 'n' roll in the 1950s and '60s, when his resume included hits by Ray Charles, Big Joe Turner, Elvis Presley, [...]
Spinning Blues Into Gold: The Chess Brothers and the Legendary Chess Records, by Nadine Cohodas
New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 2000. This saga of Chess Records and the brothers who ran it, Leonard and Phil, ranks as one of the most probing histories ever written about the independent record business. [...]
The Story of the Blues, by Paul Oliver
The Story of the Blues, by Paul Oliver. London: Penguin, 1969. Reprinted with revisions by author: Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1998. Paul Oliver's comprehensive history of the blues became an essential reference work after its [...]
Living Blues Magazine, founded by Bruce Iglauer, Jim O’Neal, Amy van Singel, Paul Garon, et al.
Living Blues magazine, founded by Bruce Iglauer, Jim O'Neal, Amy van Singel, Paul Garon, Diane Allmen, Andre Souffront and Tim Zorn. Chicago, 1970. Living Blues, America's first blues magazine, was created to fill a stateside [...]
Can’t Be Satisfied: The Life and Times of Muddy Waters, by Robert Gordon
Boston, New York and London: Little, Brown and Company, 2002. Memphis author never met Muddy Waters but came up with plenty of material to work with, including a number of interviews done by other researchers [...]