MickeyV | All About Blues Music

TARHEEL SLIM

Tarheel Slim is the nom-de-Blues of the incredibly versatile Alden Bunn, who recorded Blues, Gospel, R&B, Soul, pop and Rockabilly songs under a bewildering variety of names. He was part of the vocal groups The Larks, The Wheels and The Lovers, where he recorded several hit duets with Anna Sanford, who was to become Mrs.…

BOBBY SHEEHAN

Bobby Sheehan is best known as the hard-rocking bass player from Blues Traveler, and he was a founder member of the band when the four high-school friends got together in New Jersey in 1987. They were hooked on the idea of playing a continuous stream of music without defined tracks and became known as a…

CURTIS JONES

Curtis Jones was a melodic, Texas Blues pianist with a distinctive light touch, who enjoyed a successful recording career in Chicago before WWII, and then had a revival on the 60s Blues scene. He developed his style in Dallas and the club circuit in Kansas City before moving to Chicago in 1936. During the next…

ERIC BIBB

Eric Bibb is a master of the fusion between Blues, folk and gospel music. His warm, cultured voice and considerable skill as a Piedmont style picker show how the older forms of Blues music can be renewed and refreshed to give us incisive and relevant music for today. From his early appearances on the Greenwich…

FRED BELOW

‘Drums….Fred Below’ was one of those credits that seemed to turn up on almost every album sleeve on those classic days of Chicago Blues. His swinging shuffles could be heard behind the full roster of Blues Legends as he pulled off his special trick of keeping “a Blues beat with a Jazz feel”. Always in…

Jimmy McCracklin

Jimmy knew how to play a slow piano Blues, how to pound out a jumpin’ Boogie, a driving R&B tune and how to bring it down behind a smouldering Soul number. He could write in all these styles and he was very smart at changing with the times too. Jimmy was a founding father of…

LUTHER ALLISON

Luther Allison was born in Arkansas in 1939, and relocated to Chicago when he was 12. He learned guitar and would hang around outside the clubs in the hope of being invited in to play. One day his dream came true and Howlin’ Wolf, no less, invited him onstage. Luther often played behind harp legend…

PERCY MAYFIELD

Often called ‘The Poet Laureate of the Blues’, Percy Mayfield had a warm, rich voice that scored a string of hit Blues Ballads in the early 50s for Art Rupe‘s fledgling Specialty label in LA. His song ‘Two Years of Torture’ got Percy started when he sent it to Jimmy Witherspoon‘s record company and they…

LUCILLE BOGAN

Lucille Bogan is infamous in the history of the Blues as the writer of some of the most sexually explicit songs ever committed to record. Her song ‘Shave ‘Em Dry’, recorded under the pseudonym Bessie Jackson, begins “I’ve got nipples on my titties as big as the end of my thumb/ Got somethin’ ‘tween my…

ROBERT SHAW

Distinctive and influential Texan piano player Robert Shaw paid for his own piano lessons as a kid, because his parents didn’t approve. He would leave the farm and travel into Houston, where he picked up a liking for barrelhouse style playing, and earned a living on the ‘Santa Fe Circuit’, following the freight train routes.…