Blues Music Artists

BLIND WILLIE JOHNSON

Willie Johnson was from Texas, and his haunting slide-guitar playing didn’t slash and rage like some of his Mississippi Delta counterparts, but had a stylish, vocal quality that perfectly complimented his gruff, bass voice. Growing up playing for change on street-corners in East Texas towns, Willie became a Baptist preacher and all his life he…

SNOOKS EAGLIN

‘The Human Jukebox’ Snooks Eaglin was a major figure in post-war New Orleans Blues and R&B circles. From his beginnings as a blind street singer to a long career as a ‘must-see’ artist for visitors to the bars around the French Quarter, to a late series of brilliant albums on the Black Top label where…

JOHN CAMPBELL

John Campbell was a quiet man who played a dark and haunting acoustic Blues, combining a unique, percussive slide-guitar style with a modern songwriting ethic. The result is an authentic kind of Texas Blues that takes a familiar form, but sounds fresh and new, even when covering the classics. John died before he gained wide…

JANIS JOPLIN

With a voice capable of conveying excruciating pain and heartbreaking tenderness, Janis put herself out there in every performance, lost in the music and with raw emotion bleeding from every note. Some Blues Divas go on for ever, and some just aren’t meant to make old bones. Janis Joplin was one of the latter, joining…

GLADYS BENTLEY

A ‘Drag King’ who sings the Blues is a rare item! Gladys Bentley was a male impersonator who sang and played piano on the New York gay club scene in the late 20s in places like The Clam House and The Ubangi Club. She was a big woman who wore a tuxedo and top hat…

JUNIOR KIMBROUGH

David ‘Junior’ Kimbrough was over 60 years of age when he made an impact with his album ‘All Night Long’ in 1992, where his hard-driving juke-joint style showed that down-home country Blues can still rock the room. Junior’s archaic style has the same hypnotic pulse as John Lee Hooker‘s boogies and employs a complex poly-rhythmic…

BUDDY MOSS

Buddy Moss was at the heart of a group of gifted musicians that defined early Piedmont Blues. A harp player who became a leading exponent of fingerstyle guitar, Buddy’s career was interrupted when he went to jail for murder but his greatest problem was his spiky character that made him extremely difficult to work with. Born…

EARL HOOKER

There are few more accomplished guitar players in the history of the Blues than Earl Hooker. Renowned as a slide player, his clear, eloquent single-string runs didn’t bludgeon the listener, and his use of standard tunings meant he could quickly slip back into using the frets. He mastered new gizmos like the wah-wah pedal and…

ALLEN TOUSSAINT

The Godfather of funky New Orleans R&B, Allen Toussaint’s talents as a singer, pianist, songwriter, producer and arranger shaped the sound of The Crescent City for decades. As a solo artist Allen had a worldwide best-selling record with Southern Nights in 1975, but arguably his most important work was the vision he employed in the…

KID RAMOS

David Ramos was given a guitar and amp when he was eight years old by his opera singing parents, which they bought from a passing customer at their gas station! The Kid made a lot of noise and played around teenage parties until he got more serious and joined James Harman’s band in 1980. After…