MickeyV | All About Blues Music

‘ROCKIN TABBY’ THOMAS

Swamp Blues has the insistent, hypnotic rhythm that penetrates the listeners body like a virus and provokes inevitable symptoms like shuffling feet and swinging hips. ‘Rockin Tabby’ Thomas played guitar and piano, and sang his energetic Swamp Blues for over 50 years, becoming a legend in the Baton Rouge area, with his band, his record…

CHARLIE SAYLES

Talent does not always get you recognition, as Charlie Sayles can tell you. A hugely talented harp player with a superb technique and a great voice, he incorporates the style of Chicago’s early legends into his wide repertoire of Blues, Rock and Funk influenced material. Charlie has recorded only four albums in forty years of…

JOE LOUIS WALKER

A Legacy in Blues With a razor-sharp guitar tone and the soulful voice of a Blues legend, Joe Louis Walker was a powerhouse who continuously pushed the boundaries of the Blues genre. From old-school Blues classics to funk-driven dance grooves and gospel-tinged ballads, Walker’s music was as versatile as it was passionate. Leading his band,…

KID ORY

Kid Ory led his Original Creole Jazz Band from New Orleans to Los Angeles and from there to Chicago in the years after WWI. He released his earliest records on his is very own Sunshine label (the first Blues music to be made on the West-coast ) and distribited his products through a single store…

LEE DORSEY

New Orleans music made the world dance after WWII, with Jump-Blues and sax and piano driven good-time backbeats, but in the 60s it was home to some real funky R&B. Lee Dorsey was its foremost practitioner, as his records crossed racial and national boundaries, and opened our ears to his soulful voice and clever songs.…

‘FROM SPIRITUALS to SWING’ – JOHN HAMMOND Sr.

In 1938, the ‘Spirituals to Swing’ Concert at Carnegie Hall in New York celebrated the contribution that African-American musicians had made to popular American culture over the previous decades. The Blues had grown up in the South as a folk music which documented the hard life of sharecropping field hands. It remained in the Delta,…

SUGAR BLUE

That big, howling ‘Mississippi Sax‘ sound conveys the heart and soul of The Blues like nothing else, and it is in good hands with younger players like Sugar Blue, who invokes the spirit of the great Blues harp players like Little Walter and Rice ‘Sonny Boy II’ Miller in his work. Sugar’s spectacular runs and…

PETER GURALNICK

The Blues has changed enormously on its journey from its origins as a local ethnic folk form, to its current situation as the foundation of almost all popular Western music. With his wise analysis of the American scene in times of great change, Peter focussed attention on the music that gave disenfranchised people a vocabulary…

LESTER MELROSE

Lester Melrose was undoubtedly the most important producer of urban Blues in Chicago from the mid-20s into the post-War years. He pioneered the use of a house-band to give a consistently high quality of accompaniment to his featured artists, and his skill as an A&R man uncovered a wealth of talent in the Windy City.…

JAY McSHANN

Big-band swing made people dance in the years before WWII, and Jump-Blues and R&B did the same in the post-War years, and Jay McShann was one of the bandleaders who prompted the change. Recruiting excellent musicians in both causes, Jay (a.k.a. ‘Hootie’) played piano and sang with his band for over 70 years, and they…