In honor of the 2011 Robert Johnson Centennial celebrations, “Love in Vain” joins several Johnson classics that have already been enshrined in the Blues Hall of Fame. Johnson's poignant original was cut in 1937 in [...]
All Your Love (I Miss Loving)' is the third of Otis Rush's classic Cobra singles to earn Hall of Fame status and the second from the same 1958 session that featured both Rush and Ike [...]
Skip James' 1931 recordings for the Paramount label in Grafton, Wisconsin, all but vanished after their limited release during the Depression, now ranking among the rarest and highest-priced records on the collectors' market. But through [...]
Alberta Hunter was a leading diva during the first wave of classic blues recording in the early 1920s and astonished the world with a remarkable singing comeback in 1977 when at the age of 82. [...]
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 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, 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 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 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 [...]
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 [...]