One of a number of cautionary warnings recorded by the suspicious and distrustful Sonny Boy Williamson (Rice Miller), “Don’t Start Me Talkin’” was his biggest hit on the Billboard R&B charts. Sonny Boy had been [...]
'Going Down Slow' has become an oft-recorded blues standard over the years since its author, James 'St. Louis Jimmy' Oden, first recorded it in 1941. Oden, a songwriter of note, was not the most dynamic [...]
Hide Away, a 10-track compilation of Freddy King's early singles and album tracks from his King/Federal sessions of 1961-63, is not the most comprehensive reissue of the Texas-born singer-guitarist's work for the label, but it [...]
Bobby 'Blue' Bland was riding high in 1961, hitting both the R&B and pop charts with his singles, headlining at clubs around the country, and making the ladies swoon, when Duke Records issued his first [...]
The essential connection between music and the specific places where musicians live and create their sounds would seem to be an obvious matter. How can one conceive of history of the subject in this country [...]
The Best of Muddy Waters was the first compilation of Muddy's classic singles for the LP market, listed among the new releases in an April 1958 issue of Billboard. It was only the third LP [...]
The 1958 compilation The Best of Little Walter not only represented the king of blues harmonica at his musical best, but it also was filled with hit singles: ten of the 12 tracks hit the [...]
Amos Blackmore had barely shaken the dust of his native Memphis' streets from his pants cuffs when he began to make a name for himself in Chicago Blues. Soon after the pugnacious 12-year-old moved north [...]
James Moore AKA Slim Harpo Born: January 11, 1924 in the parish of West Baton Rouge, Louisiana. As a figure in the post-war rural blues, his music is often described as Louisiana swamp blues. As [...]
Regarded by many blues enthusiasts as the finest LP ever recorded as an album session (rather than as a collection of singles from different sessions), Hoodoo Man Blues never made the Billboard charts but over [...]