Blues Music Artists

‘PAPA’ HARVEY HULL

When J Mayo ‘Ink’ Williams set up Black Patti Records in Chicago in 1927, he was hoping to exploit the market for ‘race records‘, which was expanding rapidly. He released Blues, Jazz and Spiritual music, hell-fire sermons by ‘straining preachers’ and comedy routines and popular ditties from vaudeville stars. The enterprise was not immediately profitable,…

JOE HILL LOUIS

There is a long tradition of one-man-bands playing Blues music on street-corners. Strumming a guitar, blowing a harp in a neck-rack and beating drums and crashing cymbals with some combination of feet, knees and elbows, a street entertainer could make a living from this talent for multi-tasking. Daddy Stovepipe was the first one-man-band to make…

FRANKIE FORD

After WWII, New Orleans rocked to the sound of up-tempo Jump Blues, soon to be called R&B, driven by pounding piano riffs, funky drumming and light, clipped saxophones. Young men like Fats Domino, Smiley Lewis and Roy Brown laid the foundations for Rock’n’Roll when the music crossed over into the mainstream in the mid-50s. Frankie…

JOSEPH SPENCE

Once in while, a guitarist comes along with a fresh, new style that expands the possibilities of the instrument. Robert Johnson, Elmore James and Jimi Hendrix are men who took the guitar into new territory, but among Folk guitarists, Joseph Spence is another pioneer who took the music forward. With a dazzling, virtuoso instrumental technique,…

ROY MILTON

Sometimes known as ‘The Godfather of R&B’, Roy Milton’s big 1946 crossover hit ‘RM Blues’ was the first post-WWII success for the fledgeling Specialty label. It set the tone of good-time party music that was to dominate radio, juke-boxes and the charts for the next decade, and was the first of a long string of…

‘PAPA’ CHARLIE McCOY

Charlie McCoy is a big Country music star, but he shares his name with an older Blues player who was not a star, but whose virtuoso work on hundreds of records made a huge contribution to our music. ‘Papa’ Charlie McCoy was the younger brother of renowned slide-guitarist ‘Kansas Joe’ McCoy, and his superb mandolin…

BOB GADDY

New York is not really a ‘Blues town’ like Memphis or Chicago, but there was always a thriving club scene in Harlem and Greenwich Village in the post-WWII years. Many Piedmont Blues players found an audience in The Big Apple, and one of those was pianist Bob Gaddy whose versatile keyboard work kept him employed…

WASHBOARD WILLIE

You often see a one-man-band called Washboard Willie spreading fun and frollicks around the Piedmont area of the east coast, but he borrowed his name from an older Blues player who carved a niche for himself in Detroit in the 50s. This Washboard Willie also spread good vibes, thrashing his board alongside some accomplished Blues…

SMOKEY SMOTHERS

Firstly, there are TWO Smokey Smothers! Like the case of Sonny Boy Williamson, two men were playing the same instrument, and using the same name at the same time, but this time it was in the same town, and sometimes they even played in the same band! We will call them Big Smokey and Little…

FLOYD JONES

In the early days of electric Blues in Chicago, a lot of young musicians from the South were trying to get their songs recorded, but it was made difficult by the ‘Petrillo Ban’ on recording, which lasted for over two years as musicians fought for royalty payments for their music when it was played on…