MickeyV | All About Blues Music

MAMIE SMITH

Mamie Smith has gained legendary status as the first person to record a Blues record, and her vaudeville style rendition of Perry Bradford’s ‘Crazy Blues’ in July 1920 achieved phenomenal sales, bringing about the birth of what was called ‘race music‘. This event was the first realisation that there was a big demand among the…

ARTHUR GUNTER

Born in Nashville TN in 1926, the young Arthur Gunter would hang around Ernie Young’s Record Mart store in his spare time. Ernie was to go on to start another business, forming the Excello label in 1952, as a subsidiary to the Gospel label, Nashboro. Arthur had started out singing Gospel with his brothers and…

BILLY WRIGHT

The ‘Prince of the Blues’ was a gospel Blues shouter from Atlanta whose elaborate costumes, effeminate make-up and extravagant stage show was a model for his protege, Little Richard. After a stellar recording debut this ‘Prince’, a.k.a. Billy Wright, had a busy five year recording career that stopped abruptly around the time Little Richard hit…

JAYBIRD COLEMAN

The first country Blues often featured the harmonica, or mouth harp. This cheap and portable instrument was a favourite with wandering musicians, or ‘footloose bards’ as they were known, and the wailing sound of the harp was a distinctive feature of their music, with it’s breathy quality of human speech. ‘Jaybird’ Coleman was one of…

MONETTE MOORE

Monette Moore was a talented theatre pianist with a good voice, who was picked up by ‘Ink’ Williams‘ Paramount label and persuaded to sing the Blues on record. Like many Blues Divas during the expansion of ‘Race Music‘ in the early 20s, Monette was one of the many vaudeville singers who took up the Blues…

TAJ MAHAL

Taj Mahal was never going to be a Blues purist, but on the other hand just about everything he plays is deeply rooted in the Blues. Music from the East, West, North and South has been absorbed and incorporated in Taj’s work from the earliest days, and he continues to cross musical boundaries like a…

JOHN DOPYERA (National Steel Guitar)

It is impossible to picture Son House without a National Steel guitar in his hands. This iconic instrument was favoured by many Blues players for its loud ringing tone that could penetrate down the street or across a big room. In the days before amplification, a guitar that could penetrate across a noisy crowd was…

LARRY JOHNSON

Larry Johnson is a Piedmont guitarist who incorporated many elements of Blues styles from all over the South into his playing. Learning from some of the old originators, Larry was a man out of time when the Blues went electric and his fine interpretations of country Blues classics have been largely overlooked. Larry was born…

JACK BRUCE

Jack Bruce is best known as the thunderous yet delicate bass player and singer in the 60s ‘Supergroup’ Cream whose short career laid a huge foundation stone in the basement of Blues-Rock. A gifted multi-instrumentalist and composer, Jack was at the heart of the London jazz and Blues scene before setting up Cream to form…

DONALD ‘DUCK’ DUNN

Donald ‘Duck’ Dunn played bass for everybody from Muddy Waters to Elvis by way of Otis Redding, Albert King, Ray Charles and Bob Dylan. As part of the Stax house-band he contributed some memorable bass-lines to hundreds of hit records and of course he is remembered for playing himself in both the Blues Brothers films.…