Big Road Blues was one of the most influential recordings of early Mississippi blues, a song many bluesmen learned either from the record or from seeing Crystal Springs blues legend Tommy Johnson in person. 'I [...]
Robert Johnson's 1936 recording of 'Cross Road Blues' has become a central element in the story--real, imagined, or fabricated--of Johnson selling his soul to devil at the crossroads, as depicted on the big screen in [...]
How Long, How Long Blues' was a massive hit in the prewar blues era, a song that every blues singer and piano player had to know, and one that has continued to inspire dozens of [...]
Marion Walter Jacobs revolutionized the way blues harmonica was played with his swooping, amplified attack in the early 1950s. He remains the model to which multitudes of blues harpists aspire; questions continue to circulate about [...]
Terraplane Blues' isn't the best known of Robert Johnson's works today, but it was the song most often recalled as a Johnson hit by bluesmen of the 1930s. In the grand blues tradition of automotive [...]
Juke Blues magazine was founded in 1985 in London, England by John Broven, Bez Turner, and current Editor Cilla Huggins. A prime source for articles, interviews, reviews, discographies and photos, Juke Blues is a treasure [...]
Luther Allison broke onto the national blues scene as the hot young up-and-comer from Chicago in 1969, so highly touted that he even scored a contract with Motown in 1973 -- almost unheard-of for a [...]
Got My Mojo Working,' Muddy Waters' rousing signature tune and set-closer for years, and a standard in countless blues band repertoires, surprisingly enough was never a hit single for Muddy. He first recorded it in [...]
Baby Please Don't Go' has been recorded in many variations under many titles, but most of them can be traced back to the 1935 version by Joe Williams' Washboard Blues Singers, or to Williams' remakes [...]
Perhaps the most driven, impassioned, and creatively gifted of the young singers and guitarists who became known for the West Side style of Chicago blues in the 1950s and '60s was Otis Rush. The records [...]