Big Road Blues was one of the most influential recordings of early Mississippi blues, a song many bluesmen learned either from the record or from seeing Crystal Springs blues legend Tommy Johnson in person. 'I [...]
Robert Johnson's 1936 recording of 'Cross Road Blues' has become a central element in the story--real, imagined, or fabricated--of Johnson selling his soul to devil at the crossroads, as depicted on the big screen in [...]
How Long, How Long Blues' was a massive hit in the prewar blues era, a song that every blues singer and piano player had to know, and one that has continued to inspire dozens of [...]
Terraplane Blues' isn't the best known of Robert Johnson's works today, but it was the song most often recalled as a Johnson hit by bluesmen of the 1930s. In the grand blues tradition of automotive [...]
Got My Mojo Working,' Muddy Waters' rousing signature tune and set-closer for years, and a standard in countless blues band repertoires, surprisingly enough was never a hit single for Muddy. He first recorded it in [...]
Baby Please Don't Go' has been recorded in many variations under many titles, but most of them can be traced back to the 1935 version by Joe Williams' Washboard Blues Singers, or to Williams' remakes [...]
Boogie Chillen set the nation rocking and put John Lee Hooker's name on the map with his very first release in 1949. Although recorded up north in Detroit, it was a guitar boogie of the [...]
Juke' was the groundbreaking instrumental that established Little Walter Jacobs as a national recording star and brought unprecedented prominence to the harmonica as a prime instrument in the blues. Untold numbers of blues performers took [...]
Death Letter,' the mournful masterpiece from Delta Blues master Son House's landmark Columbia LP Father of the Folk Blues, represents blues at its deepest level. House's paean to a departed lover was recorded in Boston [...]
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 [...]