Piney Woods Blues — Big Joe Williams (Delmark, 1958)
Big Joe Williams, whose 1935 classic Baby Please Don't Go is already in the Blues Hall of Fame in the singles category, had been recording singles, first on 78 rpm and then 45 rpm, for [...]
Members Only — Bobby Bland (Malaco, 1985)
Bobby Bland's first LP with Malaco Records provided him with his biggest hit of recent decades, the title track Members Only, written by Larry Addison. Bland, a model for company loyalty in the record business, [...]
Etta James Rocks the House — Etta James (Argo, 1964)
Etta James Rocks the House, recorded live at the New Era Club in Nashville on September 27 and 28, 1963, is only the fifth live album elected to the Blues Hall of Fame. It joins [...]
I’m Jimmy Reed — Jimmy Reed (Vee-Jay, 1958)
Jimmy Reed was already making history in 1958 when Vee-Jay Records of Chicago released his first album, I'm Jimmy Reed. Not only had Reed already had ten singles on the national rhythm & blues charts [...]
Jimmy Witherspoon
Jimmy Witherspoon was one of the most prominent of the blues shouters who emerged in the 1940s and 50s, a smooth vocalist whose style made him a favorite among jazz audiences as well as blues [...]
Mississippi Sheiks
The Mississippi Sheiks were the premier African-American string band of the pre-World War II era, responsible not only for creating new hits for the blues audiences but for keeping alive a tradition that predated the [...]
John Hammond
John Henry Hammond Jr. qualifies for any number of Halls of Fame in the music business for his many accomplishments as an A&R man, producer, critic, and promoter. In his role at Columbia Records in [...]
Paul Oliver
For decades after the publication of his first book on the blues, Paul Oliver remained the blues world's foremost author, still writing and lecturing on the blues in his eighties. Oliver's works have been based [...]
7 Guitars, by August Wilson
7 Guitars was one of ten plays by playwright August Wilson that chronicled 100 years of African-American history, one play per decade. Blues was a central theme in much of Wilson's work, and the main [...]
Buddy Guy
George 'Buddy' Guy was a guitar hero and an inspiration to blues and rock guitarists alike long before he finally achieved success in the pop market with his 1991 album 'Damn Right I've Got the [...]