MickeyV | All About Blues Music

JIMI HENDRIX

Jimi Hendrix was a Rock God. Fantastically talented and supremely self-confident, his iconic poster on a zillion bedroom walls, Jimi invented new sounds for the electric guitar and used them to illustrate his passionate songs in a spectacular career. Jimi took the music industry by storm when he arrived in London in 1966, made a…

TOMMY JOHNSON

The Dockery Plantation, just a few miles from Clarksdale Mississippi, was home to the giants of early Delta Blues. The folk music played by the country people there formed the origins of The Blues, and it spread out from that district all over The South, all over the country and all over the world. Tommy…

BOBBY ‘BLUE’ BLAND

If you went to see The Beale Streeters in Memphis in the late 40s, you might find BB King, Junior Parker, Johnny Ace, Rosco Gordon and Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland on stage. The gigs and broadcasts made by this loose collection of players launched many careers, some very long and one tragically short, and gave the…

BOBBY PARKER

Bobby Parker was a great Blues all-rounder, with a superb voice, a stinging guitar style and a talent for songwriting. His big 1961 hit, ‘Watch Your Step’ influenced Little Milton, Santana and even The Beatles, leading to a big following in Europe. Bobby was a long-term resident of Washington DC, and a popular act on…

LUTHER ‘SNAKE BOY’ JOHNSON

There are no less than THREE unrelated Luther Johnsons that play guitar and sing the Blues, and all of them were born in the South around the same time. Luther ‘Snake Boy’ Johnson was also known as ‘Georgia Boy’, referring to his home-town of Davisboro; Luther ‘Guitar Junior’ Johnson hails from Itta Bena MS, and…

JAMES WHEELER

This Georgia Blues guitarist made it in Chicago where, after backing Billy Boy Arnold for while, he formed his own band The Jaguars, who backed BB King, Millie Jackson and Otis Clay. When they disbanded, James toured with Clay for three more years, and after a period of retirement he joined Otis Rush for another…

CHARLIE BURSE

Charlie Burse was a wild-living, hard-drinking, bad-tempered man whose redeeming feature was an extraordinary skill on guitar, banjo, mandolin and ukelele, the latter giving rise to his stage-name, the ‘Uke Kid’. It was his good fortune to meet up with the level-headed, business-minded multi-instrumentalist Will Shade, who managed and played with his Memphis Jug Band.…

ARTHUR’ BIG BOY’ CRUDUP

Arthur ‘Big Boy’ Crudup was a powerful and dynamic singer who wrote, ‘That’s Alright Mama’, the song which demolished the racist idea that music had a colour. His reward was small and late arriving, but Arthur’s singing and songwriting talents deserve to be much more than a footnote to the Story of the Blues. Born…

SISTER WYNONA CARR

Wynona Carr had everything a girl needs to be a big star; a great voice with range, colour and dynamic control; a pretty face that looked good on publicity material; stage presence; songwriting talent; a powerful sense of ambition: and yet she lacked the vital ingredient of Dumb Luck! She was not the first to…

HENRY ‘SON’ SIMS

Some Bluesmen acquire legendary status without appearing in front of an audience of more than a couple of hundred, never making a single broadcast or selling any records at all. One of these is Henry ‘Son’ Sims, a fiddle-playing plantation worker who made some seminal recordings with founding fathers of the Blues; who made a…