Blues Music Artists

COCO MONTOYA

Coco Montoya plays guitar left-handed and ‘upside down’ like Albert King, the man whose records first turned him on to the Blues, but it was a different Albert who took the kid under his wing and showed him how to put his deep emotions into his playing. A long career was to follow, firstly in…

NICK GRAVENITES

‘Nick the Greek’ Gravenites is a living link between the Chicago Blues clubs of the 50s; the flowering of the West-coast scene in the late 60s, and his current status as an elder statesman of the Blues. With an authentic, aggresssive growl, a wide array of writing and producing talents and an instinctive feel for…

COUSIN LEROY

Cousin Leroy was a singer, harp player and guitarist from rural Georgia whose R&B records in the late 50s put the emphasis squarely on the Blues half of the equation. He was part of the Post-WWII club scene in New York, and his regular associates included Champion Jack Dupree and Larry Dale, who graced all…

TRIXIE SMITH

In the early 1920’s Blues recording was dominated by women who took the Blues from the travelling shows and the cabaret stages to the recording studio and, although unrelated, many of them shared the surname Smith. Of course, Bessie Smith, ‘The Empress of the Blues’, is obviously the best known of these women, and Mamie…

CHARLEY BOOKER

Charley Booker was born and raised in Sunflower County, in the Mississippi Delta, with the sound of original Blues music all around him. The plantation where Charley grew up is just east of Indianola, where Charley reported seeing Charley Patton play. Charley’s uncle played with Patton and the kid was playing guitar in local juke-joints…

DUFFY POWER

Duffy Power was a man out of time. His short career as a British teen idol eventually led him to be part of the British Blues Boom, but unlike Rod Stewart, Chris Farlowe, Long John Baldry and bands like The Stones, The Yardbirds and The Animals, he couldn’t find a hit record to propel him…

FLOYD COUNCIL

Floyd Council was a superb Piedmont guitarist, mandolin player and singer, whose records appeared under the names ‘Dipper Boy’ Council and ‘The Devil’s Daddy-in-Law’. These tags were the work of his manager J D Long, who loved to give his acts memorable names: he called Fulton Allen ‘Blind Boy Fuller‘, harp player Saunders Terrell became…

LOUIS PRIMA

Louis Prima will be forever remembered as the voice of ‘King Louis’ in the Disney film of ‘Jungle Book’, and readers of a certain age will remember him as one of the biggest acts in Vegas during the 50s and 60s. However, in the late 30s, the swinging dance music played by his 5-man ‘gang’…

ROY GAINES

Roy Gaines was born on 1934 in Waskom, Texas and brought up in Houston. There was music in the family, as his older brother Grady played sax as a session musician for Don Robey‘s Peacock Records, and later joined Little Richard‘s band The Upsetters. Roy started out playing piano, but switched to guitar because he…

LADY BIANCA

A woman who can sing the Blues with an authentic growl a smooth, seductive contralto and a big, sweet toned range will always be in demand, and West-coast star Lady Bianca fills that bill perfectly. She is not well known around the world, or even across the nation, but her big, rounded voice has been…