MickeyV | All About Blues Music

TAB BENOIT

Tab Benoit has taken an old-fashioned route in his Blues career. Like Rory Gallagher in the 1970s, and Joe Bonamassa today, Tab releases high-quality albums then tours relentlessly to play the music to his people, and the result is a rock-solid fan base that doesn’t depend on radio stations and record companies to keep on…

KENNY NEAL

When you’re born in New Orleans, the son of Buddy Guy‘s harp player, and then the great Slim Harpo hands you a battered ‘Mississippi Saxophone’ when you are just three years old, there are good odds that you will end up playing the Blues. Kenny Neal rose to the challenge, playing harp, bass and scintillating…

JOHNNY ‘Geechie’ TEMPLE

With a laid-back, ‘worldly-wise’ vocal style and a talent for clever lyrics, Johnny ‘Geechie’ Temple recorded dozens of his good-selling Blues songs in the 30s and 40s. Although he was never a big star, Johnny had a long career that stretched from his origins in the Delta to the early days of Chess records in…

PETE WELDING

Some record companies are set up to exploit commercial markets and make their owners a lot of money, but Pete Weldon set up Testament Records with the aim of bringing hidden talents to the public. With a solid profession as a writer, Pete was more interested in having brilliant recordings in the can than having…

BLUE SMITTY

The Blues is a hybrid animal, absorbing elements and influences from all around and incorporating them into new and progressive styles of music. Individual musicians absorb the influences of others, consciously or otherwise, and sometimes they even openly steal others work to present as their own. This is just the way it has played out…

AMÉDÉ ARDUIN

The records made by Amédé Arduin in the 30s are at the very heart of the Creole French music of Louisiana. Played by white folks, it is called ‘Cajun’ and played by black folks it is known as ‘Zydeco’, but everyone who hears it knows that it is superb, French-based dance music. Amédé was a…

WILLIAM CLARKE

The sound of the harp has been central to the Blues since it’s origins in the Delta, and when harp players in Chicago amplified their instruments, the term ‘Mississippi Sax’ was born. William Clarke absorbed the Chicago sound and, following a skilled mentor, he took the harp to new places and his strong voice and…

GRAHAM BOND

Graham Bond is one of the long-forgotten pioneers of the British Blues Boom of the early 60s that gave the world The Rolling Stones, Cream and hundreds of bands that incorporated the ‘Blues scale’ and ‘Blues sensibilities’ into mainstream music. Graham’s lack of hit records, his involvement with heavy drugs and The Occult, and ongoing…

ELVIN BISHOP

The Blues got a big new audience in the 60s when white kids discovered the power of this fantastically expressive music, which they took up enthusiastically and turned into a cultural phenomenon. The British Blues Boom, and bands like The Stones and The Animals took the world by storm, but in The States some youngsters…

MICKEY BAKER

Very few guitarists are credited with changing the sound of popular music, but Mickey Baker’s work on countless hit singles in the 50s incorporated the essence of R&B, as he added his hot riffs and turnarounds to some of the most iconic records of the day. His intelligent Jazz/Blues guitar was heard high in the…