Aretha Franklin
Aretha Franklin was hailed for decades as the Queen of Soul, but in her time many also viewed her as the Queen of the Blues. To many more her gospel fervor, striking intimacy, vocal range, [...]
Booker T. & the MGs
Booker T. & the MG's delineated the soulful sound of Memphis playing behind a host of stars at Stax Records, all the while making instrumental hits of their own. Their first record, “Green Onions,” inducted [...]
Count Basie
Count Basie led “The Band That Plays the Blues,” and indeed his band did in its own swinging style for decades, propelling one of the major movements in American music. Long heralded as a giant [...]
Ida Cox
Ida Cox was touted as the “Uncrowned Queen of the Blues” right from the start of her recording career with the Paramount label in 1923, and before long the crown was bestowed in her ads [...]
Pee Wee Crayton
Pee Wee Crayton was one of the brightest stars on the West Coast blues horizon when his 1948 recording of “Blues After Hours” reached No. 1 on Billboard magazine’s chart for “race records” (renamed “rhythm [...]
Moe Asch
Moe Asch ranks as one of the preeminent figures in the history of folk music, including folk blues, thanks to his tireless work in releasing over 2000 albums on Folkways Records in addition to earlier [...]
Lost Delta Found: Rediscovering the Fisk University-Library of Congress Coahoma County Study, 1941-1942
Lost Delta Found: Rediscovering the Fisk University-Library of Congress Coahoma County Study, 1941-1942, by JohnW. Work, Lewis Wade Jones, and Samuel C. Adams, Jr.; Robert Gordon and Bruce Nemerov, Editors Alan Lomax’s Land Where the [...]
“Everyday I Have The Blues” – B.B. King (RPM, 1954)
“Everyday I Have the Blues” is one of the most ubiquitous of all blues songs, a required number in the repertoires of the countless bar and lounge bands of many genres. Its late entry into [...]
“I Got A Woman” – Ray Charles (Atlantic, 1954)
“I Got a Woman” by Ray Charles perfectly illustrates the way Charles transformed the sacred into the secular. He heard the Southern Tones’ gospel tune “It Must Be Jesus” (a 1954 Duke Records release) on [...]
“Rollin’ Stone” – Muddy Waters (Chess, 1950)
“Rollin’ Stone” by Muddy Waters stands as a landmark recording for several reasons. Cut in February of 1950, it was the first blues record that Chess ever issued (and the second overall, following a Gene [...]