Phil Chess
Phil Chess, younger brother of Leonard Chess, was a key figure at Chess Records throughout the label's 19-year tenure under the brothers' ownership. The Chess musical empire began at Chicago nightspots, primarily the Macomba where [...]
Otis Spann Is the Blues — Otis Spann with Robert Lockwood, Jr. (Candid, 1961)
Otis Spann was heralded as the ultimate Chicago blues band pianist, but he could be a compelling performer by himself or, as on his landmark Candid LP, with just a guitarist. Robert Lockwood is, as [...]
Boss of the Blues — Big Joe Turner (Atlantic, 1956)
Atlantic Records co-owner Ahmet Ertegun, a blues lover, co-produced most of Turner’s rocking blues and R&B hits for Atlantic in the 1950s, but his brother Nesuhi Ertegun leaned more towards jazz. In Big Joe Turner [...]
Searching for Robert Johnson: The Life and Legend of the ‘King of the Delta Blue, by Peter Guralnick
New York: Dutton, 1989. Searching for Robert Johnson is, at 83 pages, the shortest piece of literature in the Blues Hall of Fame, but the intense public interest in Robert Johnson and the insightful work [...]
Wang Dang Doodle — Koko Taylor (Checker, 1965)
'Wang Dang Doodle' was the last Willie Dixon-produced Chicago blues single to make the Billboard charts, achieiving the No. 4 R&B and No. 58 Hot 100 positions in the spring of 1966. It became Koko [...]
Jimmy Rogers
Although never quite a stage-stopping headliner on a Chicago blues scene loaded with more aggressive personalities, Jimmy Rogers nonetheless played an integral role in the development of the city's electric postwar blues sound. A key [...]
The Land Where the Blues Began, by Alan Lomax
New York: Pantheon Books, 1993. Alan Lomax's well-known skills as a folklorist were complemented by his ability to convey his findings with the kind of evocative prose that makes The Land Where the Blues Began [...]