MickeyV | All About Blues Music

FATS DOMINO

Some say, “The Blues had a Baby and they called it Rock’n’Roll.” Willie Dixon said, “Blues is the roots and the other music is the fruits.” Before anyone knew what Rock’n’Roll was, the rollicking good-time R&B coming out of the West Coast and New Orleans showed the direct connection between uptempo Blues and the music…

SHIRLEY COLLINS

English folk singer Shirley, met Alan Lomax in 1954 when he was living in London. They became romantically involved and also performed together in a ‘skiffle group’ with Ewan McColl and Peggy Seeger. Five years later, Shirley travelled to The States with Alan to make some field recordings as part of his work for the…

JEREMY SPENCER

Jeremy could play slide-guitar just like Elmore James and that is what he was brought into Fleetwood Mac to do, contributing to massive hits like ‘Albatross’ and ‘Black Magic Woman’. His rumbunctuous stage act got Mac banned from some venues and, in turbulent times for the individual players, musical differences saw Jeremy becoming isolated within…

DeFORD BAILEY

Virtuoso harp player DeFord Bailey made a living playing for dances and parties around his home town, displaying a range of riffs and trills that any modern Blues harp player would envy. His live performances always had a comedy element, as he used his harp to imitate a railway engine, a wheezing jalopy, or any…

ROOSEVELT SYKES

‘The Honeydripper’, Roosevelt Sykes was probably the most important of the several piano Blues innovators who came out of St.Louis the inter-war years. This square cut figure with the elegant suit and the fat cigar was capable of pounding the keys in a rowdy barrelhouse style and he could boogie-woogie with the best of them,…

TAMPA RED

Tampa Red and Big Bill Broonzy were good friends, long-time drinking buddies and the twin powerhouses behind the Blues scene in 1930s Chicago. Neither man had an ego problem and they both acted as mentors to the dozens of young musicians arriving from the South. Red’s apartment became a rehearsal space, rooming house and unofficial…

ELIZABETH ‘LIBBA’ COTTEN

Not many Blues players have an instrumental style so unique that it carries their name. Libba Cotten’s phenomenally accurate, but ‘upside-down’ Piedmont style with its alternating bass strings became known as ‘Cotten-picking’. Not too many write a worldwide hit song at the age of 12 either, but this is only part of the extraordinary story…

BLIND WILLIE McTELL

Willie McTell is rightly revered as one of the giants of early acoustic Blues. With his clear, light tenor voice and his stylish 12-string fingerpicking and slide guitar, he also wrote many classic Blues songs that have lingered into the modern era. Blind from birth, Willie was, by all accounts, a smart, generous, literate man…

WILLIE DIXON

In June 1960, Willie Dixon went into the studio with Howlin’ Wolf to play bass on some songs he had written for the gravel-voiced Blues icon. They cut ‘Wang-Dang Doodle’, ‘Back Door Man’ and ‘Spoonful’, all Blues classics that would have guaranteed their writer legendary status if they were produced in one lifetime, not one…

CLIFTON CHENIER

The accordion is not an obvious instrument for the Blues, but in the hands of Clifton Chenier, The King of Zydeco, resplendent in his robes and crown and singing his in Creole patois, good-time boogie and swamp blues gained a delicious new flavour. Once confined to a small corner of Southern Louisiana, this joyful blend…