Denise LaSalle
Denise LaSalle has reigned as the Queen of the Blues on the Southern soul circuit for years, famed for her many self-penned hits as well as her bold and bawdy stage act. LaSalle, born Ora [...]
Big Maybelle
Big Maybelle, one of the most powerful and expressive blues vocalists of the 1950s, led a life that was, as a sticker on one of her albums advertised, “One part triumph, two parts tragedy.” In [...]
Gene Nobles
Bill “Hoss” Allen, Gene “Daddy” Nobles, and “John R.” (John Richbourg), the late-night announcing crew of WLAC radio in Nashville, were inducted together into the Hall of Fame in 1994 for their groundbreaking work in [...]
Big Joe Turner
Big Joe Turner, the quintessential shouter of the blues, crossed many boundaries with his spirited, free-swinging vocal excursions. He was a king of the jump blues genre, a boogie woogie belter, progenitor of rhythm & [...]
Sippie Wallace
One of the few blues queens of the prewar vaudeville era to enjoy a new round of celebrity in the 1960s, '70s, and '80s, Sippie Wallace began her recording career in 1923. Billed as the [...]
Dinah Washington
Dinah Washington enjoyed great renown in her later years for her ballad singing and jazz stylings, as well as for her catchy pop/R&B duets with Brook Benton, but in her day she was hailed as [...]
Reconsider Baby — Lowell Fulson (Checker, 1954)
Reconsider Baby,' sometimes known under other titles after the song's opening line ('So long, oh, how I hate to see you go'), was Lowell Fulson's wistful goodbye and plea to a departing lover, with a [...]
Live at the Regal — B.B. King (ABC-Paramount, 1965)
The quintessential album of the urban blues experience may well be 'Live at the Regal.' Recorded November 21, 1964, at Chicago's leading African American showcase, the album not only captures B.B. King in all his [...]
Professor Longhair
No performer embodied the spirit of New Orleans more than Henry Roeland Byrd, better known as Professor Longhair. His lasting influence on the Crescent City scene belies the fact that he often struggled to make [...]
Wynonie Harris
One of the most popular and powerful singers to contribute to the birth of 1940s rhythm & blues, Wynonie Harris achieved his greatest hits by rocking long and hard or by making his listeners laugh [...]