Blues Music Artists

RUTH BROWN

Ruth Weston sang Gospel in her father’s church before she joined Lucky Millinder‘s band while still a teenager. On the road, she married trumpeter Jimmy Brown, but a couple of years later she was fired from the band over an alcohol related incident. Ruth was one of Atlantic Records’ first signings, but her debut was…

ANSON FUNDERBURGH

White Blues guitarists like Anson’s fellow Texans Johnny Winter and Stevie Ray Vaughan made the point that you don’t have to be Black to play the Blues, which was a moot point among music critics back in the day. Listening to classic Blues records and seeing Freddie King, Jimmy Reed and Albert Collins playing in…

CAREY BELL

Carey Bell was a Blues harp master whose technique incorporated the wild flares of Little Walter and the intricate melodic style of Big Walter ‘Shakey’ Horton. His long career as a side-man has been punctuated by solo albums and spells as a band-leader, sometimes sharing the stage with his son, the guitarist Lurie Bell. Born…

JOHN HAMMOND Jr.

John Hammond Jr. has enjoyed a long career playing country Blues on his National Steel guitar and Blues harp, carrying a technique soaked in the Delta to stages all over the world. John is no country copyist, as his electric guitar work shows, but his dedication to acoustic Blues has done a lot to preserve…

MOSE ALLISON

Pianist and singer/songwriter Mose Allison has suffered throughout his career from being hard to categorise. Mose has a laid-back, smoky vocal tone well suited to both jazz and Blues. He can play boogie-woogie and slow drag-out blues, but he recorded a lot of wild bebop in jazz trio form. He wrote some great songs of…

IDA COX

Ida Cox was a Blues Diva of the 20s whose songs were specifically addressed to black women in their search for freedom, dignity and respect from society in general and from their men in particular. She was a highly talented lyricist, whose work was used by others in their own songs, so that many phrases…

SUSAN TEDESCHI

Susan Tedeschi was destined for a career in music. She was on the Broadway stage as a six-year-old and preferred Baptist churches to her Italian family’s Catholic kind, because the singing was more fun! Susan started her first band at 13 and when she was 18, she formed Smoking Section to perform original material before…

BONNIE RAITT

Bonnie Raitt embodies how far Blues music has come in a century. She is the opposite of a poor black man, yet her sensitive and soulful slide-playing speaks of bone-hard times and her warm, subtle approach to a vocal line shows the profound empathy that Blues music awakens in the human heart. In 1949, Bonnie…

DOUG SAHM

Little Douglas Wayne Sahm got started by playing steel guitar on a San Antonio radio station when he was just five years old. As a teenager Doug recorded for various small Texas labels and formed a gigging band called The Pharoahs, and in 1965, producer Huey Meaux encouraged him to form The Sir Douglas Quintet,…

IKE TURNER

Years before he met Tina, Ike Turner was a big noise on the Memphis R&B scene. As a bandleader, session musician and talent scout, he was involved in recording BB King, Howlin’ Wolf, Elmore James, Johnny Ace and Junior Parker for Sam Phillips‘ Memphis Recording Service, which later became Sun Records, and for the Bihari…