Big Bill Broonzy
Big Bill Broonzy was the royal ambassador of the blues in his day, setting a precedent for the expansive pathways later charted by B.B. King. Broonzy was one of the most prolific recording artists of [...]
Muddy Waters
When the Blues Hall of Fame conducted balloting for the first group of inductees in 1980, Muddy Waters received more votes than any other artist. The kingpin of Chicago blues during its glory days, Muddy [...]
Blues Records 1943-1966 by Mike Leadbitter & Neil Slaven
Blues Records 1943-1966, by Mike Leadbitter and Neil Slaven, London England: Hanover Books Ltd., 1968. British discographers Mike Leadbitter and Neil Slaven, both key figures in promoting and documenting the blues in the 1960s, illuminated [...]
David ‘Honeyboy’ Edwards
David "Honeyboy" Edwards defied the odds by only increasing his stature as a performer as he aged into his nineties with his skills and charms still intact. Both as a singer-guitarist and an oral history [...]
Driving Wheel — Little Jr. Parker (Duke, 1962)
Driving Wheel was Little Jr. Parker's first full-length LP, released on the Houston-based Duke label at the height of Parker's popularity in 1962, when he was ranked in the top echelon of blues artists, along [...]
Johnny Winter
Johnny Winter burst on the national scene with a barrage of guitar pyrotechnics during a period when blues was super-hip to the rock 'n' roll crowd and staked his claim to fame with his first [...]
Pete Welding
Pete Welding, one of America's foremost blues authorities, made major contributions to the documentation of the blues both as a writer and as a record producer. Little of his work as a critic, annotator and [...]
Sonny Payne
John William 'Sonny' Payne was the genial host of the legendary King Biscuit Time program on KFFA radio in Helena, Arkansas, for more decades than most of his listeners have even been alive. Payne, a [...]
The Bluesmen, by Samuel Charters
Sam Charters' groundbreaking research on the blues in the 1950s and '60s resulted in several books that helped fuel the blues revival, bringing to light a musical and cultural history that no previous books had [...]
Strong Persuader by Robert Cray (Mercury LP/CD, 1986)
Strong Persuader was a breakthrough album both for Robert Cray and the blues, and its success is often cited as one of the key forces in reviving interest in the blues in the 1980s. The [...]