MickeyV | All About Blues Music

MOSE ALLISON

Pianist and singer/songwriter Mose Allison has suffered throughout his career from being hard to categorise. Mose has a laid-back, smoky vocal tone well suited to both jazz and Blues. He can play boogie-woogie and slow drag-out blues, but he recorded a lot of wild bebop in jazz trio form. He wrote some great songs of…

IDA COX

Ida Cox was a Blues Diva of the 20s whose songs were specifically addressed to black women in their search for freedom, dignity and respect from society in general and from their men in particular. She was a highly talented lyricist, whose work was used by others in their own songs, so that many phrases…

BONNIE RAITT

Bonnie Raitt embodies how far Blues music has come in a century. She is the opposite of a poor black man, yet her sensitive and soulful slide-playing speaks of bone-hard times and her warm, subtle approach to a vocal line shows the profound empathy that Blues music awakens in the human heart. In 1949, Bonnie…

SIPPIE WALLACE

Sippie Wallace knew about the Blues because she was part of its roots. She was one of the original Blues Divas; a talented young songwriter, a riveting performer and a most respected artist who became a best-seller in the early days of ‘race music‘, but she also knew about the suffering and loss that gives…

LOWELL FULSON

Lowell Fulson was a pioneer of West Coast Blues, a laid-back singer who wrote many classic songs and played his smoking guitar lines for a worldwide audience for half a century. He adapted his music for the times, playing hard Blues, Funky Soul and driving R&B, but never compromised his fluid yet penetrating style. Born…

SONNY TERRY & BROWNIE McGHEE

Blind harp wizard Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, a spectacular guitar picker, had a 35-year-long partnership that helped to define Folk/Blues. Their Piedmont style Blues has a very different feel to Delta Blues and its effect on modern music has a very different genesis to the route through Chicago that gave us Blues-rock. New York…

ALBERTA HUNTER

Alberta Hunter had a truly remarkable career. She started out singing in Chicago clubs at the age of 12; she was one of the original big selling Blues Divas who also wrote Bessie Smith‘s first hit; she had a four decade stage and cabaret career; she toured the world in WWII entertaining the Forces; she…

BIG JOE WILLIAMS

Big Joe Williams was a classic Mississippi Delta Bluesman. This gruff voiced, awkward fellow with his nine-string guitar had played in jug-bands and minstrel shows; he had wandered all over the South ‘riding the blinds’ as a hobo; played for tips on street-corners and juke-joints and then, when he moved to Chicago, wrote some songs that…

SISTER ROSETTA THARPE

Sister Rosetta was a sanctified Gospel singer who caused consternation among the flock by appearing in theatres and nightclubs, singing the Blues. She was a glorious sight to behold in her smart dresses and high heels as she toted her electric guitar like a Tommy-gun, spattering Blues licks around her audience like red-hot bullets. Rosetta…

ROBERT NIGHTHAWK

Robert Nighthawk was an important figure in the transitional development of Blues from its Mississippi roots to its new home in the city. His slide-guitar work, with its combination of rhythmic drive and subtle one-string runs, was learned in the Delta juke-joints but its effects were heard many years later in the clubs and bars…