The Aces
Brothers Louis and Dave Myers and their longtime friend Fred Below (pronounced BEE-low) formed the Three Aces, one of Chicago’s premier blues combos, in the early 1950s. Also known as the Three Dukes, the Four [...]
Georgia Tom Dorsey
Thomas A. Dorsey was famed as the “Father of Gospel Music,” but earlier in his career he was “Georgia Tom,” a Chicago blues pianist, Ma Rainey accompanist, partner of Tampa Red, and composer of the [...]
Sam Lay
Sam Lay joins his main influence, Fred Below of the Aces, as the first Chicago blues drummers elected to the Blues Hall of Fame. Lay is one of the rare blues drummers to earn crossover fame [...]
Mamie Smith
Mamie Smith, the first true queen of the blues, created a sensation with the phenomenal success of her 1920 recording of “Crazy Blues” and her extravagant stage shows. Not only did she help pioneer a [...]
Roebuck “Pops” Staples
Roebuck “Pops” Staples, one of the foremost figures in American gospel music as a singer, guitarist, and patriarch of the Staple Singers family group, was a blues performer in his younger days, and his blues-drenched [...]
Al Benson
In the heyday of Chicago blues, no one had more say about which records became hits or which products and businesses got advertised to the Windy City’s huge African-American population than the powerful disc jockey, [...]
I Feel So Good: The Life and Times of Big Bill Broonzy, by Bob Riesman (University of Chicago Press, 2011)
I Feel So Good: The Life and Times of Big Bill Broonzy, by Bob Riesman, has earned a place as one of the most definitive blues biographies since it was published in 2011 by University [...]
Blues Is King, B.B. King (ABC BluesWay, 1967)
Blues Is King is the third B.B. King album selected for the Blues Hall of Fame, following Live at the Regal and Live in Cook County Jail. All three were recorded live in Chicago for the ABC label group. [...]
“Cross Cut Saw” – Albert King (Stax, 1966)
“Cross Cut Saw,” one of Albert King’s early chart hits, was a song with a complicated evolution. Originally a downhome Delta blues recorded in 1941 by Tony Hollins and Tommy McClennan, it was later recorded [...]
“Green Onions” – Booker T. & the MG’s (Stax/Volt, 1962)
A No. 1 R&B hit which also reached No. 3 on the pop charts in an era of hit instrumentals, “Green Onions” embodied a simple but memorable 12-bar blues groove laid down by session musicians [...]