Bill Doggett had his own big band in Philadelphia before joining Lucky Millinder in 1940. Doggett played and arranged for the Ink Spots, Illinois Jacquet, Louis Jordan and Ella Fitzgerald before forming his own group [...]
This was the first song Skip James recorded in 1931 for Paramount Records, and also the first song he sang at his historic Newport Folk Festival performance in 1964. James had just been rediscovered in [...]
Nobody sang 'Hound Dog' better than Big Mama Thornton. The Pop world only knows that in 1956 Elvis Presley gyrated to it. But this Leiber-Stoller song achieved initial fame when Thornton recorded her seminal version [...]
Black Night, the mournful minor-key blues masterpiece of West Coast blues balladeer Charles Brown, stayed at No. 1 on the Billboard Rhythm & Blues charts for 14 weeks in 1951. No record since then has [...]
John Lee “Sonny Boy” Williamson’s first record, “Good Morning, School Girl” (with “Sugar Mama Blues” on the flip side) was also his best remembered and most influential release. Williamson brought the lowly harmonica (never previously [...]
Worried Life Blues' was elected to the Blues Hall of Fame in the first year of balloting in the Classics of Blues Recordings category. It was also the first song ever recorded by singer-pianist Major [...]
One of Sonny Boy Williamson’s specialties was his way of singing not just about the sadness of lost love but also about how cruel and unjust it all seemed to him. In the case of [...]
Statesboro Blues' may be best known as an Allman Brothers electric guitar showcase from their 1971 Fillmore East album, but the original recording by Georgia street musician Blind Willie McTell was a lithe acoustic rendition [...]
Elmore (Elmo) James recorded many classics after hitting the charts with “Dust My Broom” in 1952 and “I Believe” in 1953, but only with New York producer Bobby Robinson did Elmore get his name back [...]
For a strong-willed bluesman known for his rough and rowdy ways, Sonny Boy Williamson (Rice Miller) was certainly not afraid to show vulnerability when it came to pleading with women in his songs. “You got [...]