Blues Music Artists
BOBBY RUSH
Bobby Rush is best known as an outlandish Soul singer on the nightclub scene, but his roots are deep in the Blues. He started out playing guitar and harp with some Chicago legends, and after a long time on the road, getting on for thirty albums and a lot of funky music, his later records…
Read MoreCAROLYN WONDERLAND
Carolyn Wonderland carries the torch for modern Texas Blues in fine style. With an excellent slide-guitar technique, a talent for perceptive songwriting and a voice that recalls a young Janis Joplin, she is a multi-instrumentalist with a social conscience. Carolyn has played Blues clubs for more than twenty years and at many Blues Festivals in…
Read MoreKOKOMO ARNOLD
Kokomo Arnold is not well known today, but in Chicago in the mid-30s, he was a big player. The song that gave him his name, ‘Kokomo Blues’ was adapted by Robert Johnson as ‘Sweet Home Chicago’; ‘Dust My Broom’ came from another Kokomo song; and his ‘Milk Cow Blues’ has been covered by many artists.…
Read MoreBLACK ACE
Black Ace was the recording name of BK Turner, a Texas Bluesman with a melodious voice and a fine slide-guitar style, who took his Blues name from his only popular record. He was a well known radio personality in Fort Worth before WWII, when his records sold well across the South, but he was never…
Read MoreCLIMAX BLUES BAND
The Climax Chicago Blues Band rode the late-60s wave of popularity in Britain, as the vital new sounds of bands like The Stones, Fleetwood Mac and Cream placed new music at a crossroads, with paths leading to Hard-rock, Progressive music, Jazz-Fusion and Heavy Metal as musicians used the language of the Blues to speak to…
Read MoreSTUDEBAKER JOHN
Searing slide-guitar and howling electrified harp are the hallmarks of Chicago Blues, and Studebaker John is a home-town boy who is taking that tradition into the future. Inspired by Hound Dog Taylor and JB Hutto, John can thrash out a boogie while playing a lead-guitar line on top; he has a light but penetrating voice;…
Read MoreSONNY RHODES
Sonny Rhodes, resplendent in his bejewelled turban, is famous for playing his own brand of Texas Blues on a lap-steel guitar. After a long apprenticeship on the club scene building up a following, both at home and in Europe, Sonny made his mark in the 90s with some great albums and Festival appearances. He continues…
Read MoreBOB KOESTER
Bob Koester set up Delmark Records over sixty years ago, and his Jazz Record Mart in Chicago is the biggest Jazz and Blues record store in the world. A music lover and collector of classic Jazz and Blues records from an early age, Bob’s labour of love became a thriving business as he progressed from…
Read MoreTOMMY RIDGLEY
Tommy Ridgley was a big noise in New Orleans in the early 50s when the music coming out of the Crescent City was making the whole world dance. The swinging vocals Tommy put over those driving sax and piano melodies and Big Beat rhythms caught the mood of the time. Many of his contemporaries went…
Read MoreHADDA BROOKS
In the years after WWII, when Jump-blues and Boogie-woogie were transforming popular music, Hadda Brooks was a glamorous West-coast pianist who could thump out a boogie or croon a Blues ballad with the best of them. She went on to a career in film and TV, then staged a comeback in the 80s that earned…
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