Art Rupe
Arthur N. 'Art' Rupe has left an indelible mark on American music thanks to his recordings of Sam Cooke, Little Richard, Percy Mayfield, Guitar Slim, Roy Milton, Joe Liggins, the Soul Stirrers, and many other [...]
Ahmet Ertegun
Ahmet Ertegun, a Turkish immigrant with a love for African-American music, co-founded one of America's premier record companies, Atlantic Records, in 1948. Atlantic's earliest success was with Blues and R&B artists such as Ruth Brown, [...]
Blues With a Feeling: The Little Walter Story, by Tony Glover, Scott Dirks & Ward Gaines
Three harmonica players from different parts of the country - Glover from Minnesota, Dirks from Chicago, and Gaines from Washington, D.C. - joined forces to pay tribute to their idol in Blues With a Feeling: [...]
James Cotton
James Cotton came up under the masters Sonny Boy Williamson No. 2 (Rice Miller), Howlin' Wolf, and Muddy Waters, and emerged in the mid-1960s with his own hard-hitting blues style, one that came to epitomize [...]
Hide Away (Hideaway) — Freddie (Freddy) King (Federal, 1961)
Probably the most-played set-closing instrumental in the repertoires of blues bands around the country for more than 50 years has been the Freddy King smash 'Hide Away,' a Top 10 R&B hit on the Federal [...]
Joe, Jules, Lester, and Saul Bihari
As the founders of Modern Records, the Bihari Brothers, Jules, Joe, and Saul, formed the base of one of the most influential R&B labels in Pop history. John Lee Hooker, Elmore James, Hadda Brooks, Lightnin' [...]
Screamin’ and Hollerin’ the Blues: The Worlds of Charley Patton (Revenant, 2001)
This labor of true love was spearheaded by label cofounder/guitar great John Fahey, though tragically he didn't live long enough to see it completed. It's easily one of the most beautiful collections of recorded music [...]
Blues & Rhythm magazine, founded by Paul Vernon, edited by Tony Burke
The prolific magazine Blues & Rhythm: The Gospel Truth was founded in London in 1984 by British blues collector and pundit Paul Vernon to provide a complementary but more wide-ranging and timely voice to the [...]
Chasin’ That Devil’s Music, by Gayle Dean Wardlow, edited by Edward Komara
This book by Blues scholar Gayle Dean Wardlow reveals the stories behind the great Blues pioneers, some in their own words. As a Mississippi journalist, Wardlow began searching the Delta in the early 1960s for [...]
Honky Tonk, Parts 1 & 2 – Bill Doggett (King, 1956)
Bill Doggett had his own big band in Philadelphia before joining Lucky Millinder in 1940. Doggett played and arranged for the Ink Spots, Illinois Jacquet, Louis Jordan and Ella Fitzgerald before forming his own group [...]