Although this often considered the record that crossed B.B. King over into the pop market, Joel Whitburn's Top Pop Singles 1955-1990 reveals that it actually marked the 19th B.B. entry on pop charts dating back [...]
Manish Boy' was one of a series of Chess singles that featured Muddy Waters convincingly touting his own virility ('spelled M-A-N, that represent man, no B-O-Y') ably (and verbally) assisted by an all-star crew with [...]
Slide guitar maestro Robert Nighthawk took his cues from an earlier slide wizard, Tampa Red, when he recorded the powerfully emotive 'Black Angel Blues' and its flip side, 'Annie Lee Blues,' for Aristocrat Records in [...]
Bursting with energy from a strutting pulse, Hubert Sumlin's zinging guitar and Howlin' Wolf's lupine gnarl, 'Killing Floor' was one of Wolf's most recognizable songs. It has long been a staple among many blues bands [...]
Sweet Home Chicago' has become an all too familiar bar band anthem over the past few decades, but even in Robert Johnson's time the theme was circulating from one artist to another. Johnson may have [...]
T-Bone Walker's 1947 recording of 'Call It Stormy Monday' was one of the most influential records not only in blues history, but in guitar history. As if the classic lyrics sung so smoothly by Walker [...]
I'm Your Hoochie Coochie Man' was the first of numerous Willie Dixon songs to be recorded by Muddy Waters, one of a series that built on Muddy's already-established charisma to build him an even more [...]
The Things That I Used to Do was one of the biggest blues hits of the 1950s, a song that entered the repertoires of hundreds of blues singers. A poignant, remorseful piece, it provided the [...]
The Wolf's quintessential howling cry rode a hypnotic pounding beat all the way the Top Ten of Billboard's rhythm & blues charts on the 1956 single 'Smoke Stack Lightning,' often spelled 'Smokestack Lightnin'' on subsequent [...]
With the George Jackson penned 'Down Home Blues,' Z.Z. Hill is credited with bringing the Blues back to the African American community. In 1982, the album Down Home inspired radio programmers across America to add [...]