MCA released several outstanding compilations of classic blues and R&B sides from the Chess Records catalog in The Chess Box series. The Howlin’ Wolf box (Chess CH5-9332) is the second in the series to win Blues Hall of [...]
“3 O’Clock Blues” (RPM 339) was B.B. King’s breakthrough record, becoming a No. 1 R&B hit in 1952 after none of his first seven records ever hit the national charts. It was the first record [...]
Willie Brown may be best known in blues lore as a sidekick to the legends of Delta blues -- Charley Patton, Son House, and Robert Johnson -- but he was regarded as a top-notch guitarist, [...]
The best-selling R&B record of 1953, “Mama, He Treats Your Daughter Mean” (Atlantic 986) racked up over 400,000 sales, according to Billboard magazine. The third of five Ruth Brown No. 1 R&B hits, “Mama, He Treats Your [...]
Big Boy Crudup’s “That’s All Right,” an infectious down-home jump often called “That’s All Right Mama,” was a historic record not only for Crudup but for Elvis Presley. Recorded on September 6, 1946 in Chicago [...]
The oft-recorded Richard M. Jones composition “Trouble In Mind” was first waxed in 1924 by Thelma La Vizzo, but it was Bertha “Chippie” Hill who made the classic version in Chicago on February 23, 1926 (OKeh 8312) [...]
Aretha Franklin was hailed for decades as the Queen of Soul, but in her time many also viewed her as the Queen of the Blues. To many more her gospel fervor, striking intimacy, vocal range, [...]
Booker T. & the MG's delineated the soulful sound of Memphis playing behind a host of stars at Stax Records, all the while making instrumental hits of their own. Their first record, “Green Onions,” inducted [...]
Count Basie led “The Band That Plays the Blues,” and indeed his band did in its own swinging style for decades, propelling one of the major movements in American music. Long heralded as a giant [...]
Ida Cox was touted as the “Uncrowned Queen of the Blues” right from the start of her recording career with the Paramount label in 1923, and before long the crown was bestowed in her ads [...]