Blues Music Artists

TOMMY McCLENNAN

Tommy McClennan was a rough-edged Delta Blues player whose gravel voice and wild, slashing guitar style evoked the earliest days of the Blues. In a 27-month recording career in Chicago, he left a powerful legacy of raw-boned Blues, and his songs like ‘Deep Sea Blues’ (re-worked by his friend, and possible ‘alter ego’ Robert Petway…

BILLIE HOLIDAY

Billie Holiday was one of the world’s foremost Jazz singers, with that flexible but fragile voice that spoke to the heart of a woman’s pain and vulnerability. She had a magnificent command of jazz phrasing but her vocal presentation was underscored with fundamental elements of Blues music, specifically ‘thirds’ descending into ‘seconds’ to give those…

JOHN MOONEY

Leading his New Orleans based band Bluesiana, John Mooney’s heavy, rhythmic guitar style combines Delta slide work with electric Blues that can boogie with the best of them. A series of classy albums and relentless touring have made him a welcome guest on the world Festival circuit, and a fixture in his adopted home town.…

BIG MACEO MERRIWEATHER

Maceo Merriweather was in important interpreter of urban piano Blues technique, who helped to transform the rough barrel-house styles of the Southern juke-joints and ‘sporting houses’ into the more sophisticated improvisations heard on the Chicago club scene. Performing solo or in a small band setting, Maceo incorporated the understated good taste of Leroy Carr with…

JAZZ GILLUM

While John Lee ‘Sonny Boy’ Williamson was the undoubted King of the Chicago harp players in the 40s, Jazz Gillum was the big noise there many years before him. As part of Lester Melrose‘s stable of session musicians, Jazz performed on hundreds of ARC and Bluebird recordings, and his long partnership with Big Bill Broonzy…

JOHNNY COPELAND

Johnny Copeland had been playing his hard-rocking Texas Blues for thirty years before his Grammy winning collaboration with Albert Collins and Robert Cray on the ‘Showdown!’ album in 1985. This sent his name around the world, and he journeyed abroad himself to bring back some African rhythms to his own compositions. With a big booming…

PETE JOHNSON

Pete Johnson was a drummer before he took up piano in the clubs and bars of Kansas City in the mid-20s. He teamed up with Big Joe Turner and they spent over ten years honing their act in upscale nightspots like The Sunset Cafe. After seeing Pete play in Kansas, producer John Hammond brought him…

‘BOOGIE BILL’ WEBB

Singer and guitarist Bill Webb from Jackson MS was almost 30 before he made his recording debut in 1953 when he was brought to a New Orleans studio by Fats Domino. Dave Bartholemew produced ‘Boogie Bill”s single ‘Bad Dog’, and it had more in common with the music of his Delta heritage than the fast…

LOUISIANA RED

Louisiana Red was an extraordinary character. A huge man with a slow, deliberate manner, he was a brilliant songwriter who used the tragedies of his own experience to produce a vivid, visceral Blues. His technique on slide-guitar harked back to the Delta, but he played harp and finger-style electric guitar too, and often moved himself…

JUKE BOY BONNER

Juke Boy Bonner got his name as a kid, because he would sing along with the juke-box. This multi-instrumentalist sometimes performed as a one-man-band, and he never had a hit record, but he wrote some excellent, perceptive songs about his hard life, his opinions on ‘race-relations’ and the economics of poverty. Weldon Bonner was born…