Freddie King was one of the most successful instrumentalists in the blues, able to turn a seemingly endless string of themes into crafty guitar hooks with dance beats in keeping with the times during the [...]

Magic Sam (Samuel Maghett) was at the forefront of the new electric blues movement in Chicago that is often called the West Side style, because many of the artists often performed or recorded on the [...]

Clifton Chenier's propulsive bi-lingual blend of rhythm & blues and traditional Creole music set the standard for all who followed the zydeco trail he blazed. His renown was such that not only was he hailed [...]

Though he traveled side by side with some of the most notorious personalities in the blues, including Robert Johnson, Sonny Boy Williamson No. 2 (Rice Miller), and Little Walter, “Robert Jr.” never fit the wild [...]

One of the most prolific of all blues recording artists, Memphis Slim was never away from the studio for too long after he cut his first records in 1940 for OKeh. Although a sophisticated vocalist [...]

The hottest of a bevy of guitarists to emerge from a veritable hotbed of blues guitar in Houston, Texas, Albert Collins was also the “coolest.” His searing, stinging guitar attack came to be marketed with [...]

While Robert Johnson may be the artist most associated today with the title “King of the Delta Blues,” if such a title had been bestowed back when the music was first being recorded, the premier [...]

Mathis James “Jimmy” Reed was one the first bluesmen to achieve “crossover” success, scoring hits on both the rhythm & blues and pop charts with “Honest I Do,” “Big Boss Man,” “Baby What You Want [...]

Bessie Smith, 'The Empress of the Blues',  is regarded by many as the greatest female blues vocalist ever. Born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on April 15, 1894, Bessie Smith was a protege of Ma Rainey who [...]

Otis Spann, the first piano player inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame, did more than anyone to define the pianist's role in postwar Chicago blues. His rock-solid support of Muddy Waters throughout the '50s [...]