J.B. Lenoir
J.B. Lenoir never achieved the level of stardom of some of his Chicago blues contemporaries, but his musical and political legacies ensured that he would be remembered long after his death at the age of [...]
Vivian Carter and Jimmy Bracken
Vivian Carter and Jimmy Bracken were the “Vee” and “Jay” in Vee-Jay Records, at one time the largest black-owned record company in the world. Vee-Jay is renowned for its catalog of blues classics by Jimmy [...]
John W. Work III
John W. Work, III, was a noted African American educator, composer, choral director, scholar, and folklorist whose 39-year career at Fisk University in Nashville (1927-1966) was filled with accolades. Work held degrees from Fisk, Columbia [...]
Samuel Charters
Samuel Charters piloted much of the 1960s blues revival in America, navigating a story line of the blues for a fascinated new audience through his extensive writings and record productions. Charters, born in Pittsburgh on [...]
Bruce Bromberg
Bruce Bromberg has been one of the premier producers of blues and roots music of the past 40 years, known especially for his work with Robert Cray. Although he was born in the blues capital [...]
Walking to New Orleans: The Story of New Orleans Rhythm & Blues, by John Broven
British author John Broven's Walking to New Orleans was the first book on the Crescent City's vaunted R&B legacy, and to many it remains the definitive work. Focusing on the recordings of Fats Domino, Lloyd [...]
Parchman Farm — Bukka White (Columbia, 1970)
Bukka White's 1940 session for producer Lester Melrose in Chicago is regarded as one of the pinnacles of blues recording history. The 12 tracks from that two-day session, along with two songs from a 1937 [...]
Albert King
Albert King, often billed as “King of the Blues Guitar,” was arguably at one time the world's most widely imitated blues guitarist, although his self-taught left-handed method of playing with his axe turned upside down [...]
Blues From the Gutter — Champion Jack Dupree (Atlantic, 1958)
As a portrait of the down-and-out, street-level life of a junkie in 1958, Blues From the Gutter must have had quite an appeal to the album-buying public of the beat poets' era. Dupree's moods actually [...]
I Hear You Knockin”, by Jeff Hannusch
No writer has done more to chronicle the vibrant sounds of New Orleans rhythm & blues than Jeff Hannusch, a transplanted Canadian who made the Crescent City his home. In his first book, I Hear [...]