Johnny Winter
Johnny Winter burst on the national scene with a barrage of guitar pyrotechnics during a period when blues was super-hip to the rock 'n' roll crowd and staked his claim to fame with his first [...]
Down on Stovall’s Plantation — Muddy Waters (Testament, 1966)
Muddy Waters' legendary first recordings, cut at his house in Mississippi on portable equipment by a Library of Congress/Fisk University recording unit led by Alan Lomax and John W. Work III, were first collected on [...]
The Chess Box — Muddy Waters (P-Vine Special, 1985)
P-Vine Special, the exemplary Japanese specialist reissue label, set the standard in blues box sets during the LP era with the Muddy Waters compilation The Chess Box, issued as an 11-LP set, with a bonus [...]
How Long, How Long Blues — Leroy Carr (Vocalion, 1928)
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 [...]
Pony Blues — Charley Patton (Paramount, 1929)
Of the 14 tracks Charley Patton recorded at his 1929 debut session, Paramount chose 'Pony Blues' and 'Banty Rooster Blues,' as the two sides of his first single, which proved to be his biggest hit [...]
Blues Fell This Morning: Meaning in the Blues by Paul Oliver
The first in British blues authority Paul Oliver’s series of books documenting the history and analyzing the blues, Blues Fell This Morning was a landmark work in its interpretation of the language, lyrics, and subject [...]
Mississippi John Hurt
Mississippi John Hurt was one of the heroes of the 1960s folk-blues revival and a much-loved 'patriarch hippie' in the words of his former booking agent Dick Waterman. Hurt's gentle, finger-picked blues -- so unlike [...]
Little Milton
Little Milton Campbell remained a top name in the soul and blues field for more than four decades after scoring his first national hit in 1962. Milton was an influential bluesman even by the 1950s [...]
Jay McShann
Comfortably situated right at the juncture of blues and jazz, both stylistically and geographically (in Kansas City), Jay McShann carved out a distinguished career as a master of both idioms. Coming out of the swing [...]
Born Under a Bad Sign — Albert King (Stax, 1967)
Born Under a Bad Sign' was one of the signature hits of Albert King that started to win the left-handed string-bender a crossover following in 1967, as he began to break out of the chittlin [...]