Blues Music Artists

FRED BELOW

‘Drums….Fred Below’ was one of those credits that seemed to turn up on almost every album sleeve on those classic days of Chicago Blues. His swinging shuffles could be heard behind the full roster of Blues Legends as he pulled off his special trick of keeping “a Blues beat with a Jazz feel”. Always in…

Jimmy McCracklin

Jimmy knew how to play a slow piano Blues, how to pound out a jumpin’ Boogie, a driving R&B tune and how to bring it down behind a smouldering Soul number. He could write in all these styles and he was very smart at changing with the times too. Jimmy was a founding father of…

LUTHER ALLISON

Luther Allison was born in Arkansas in 1939, and relocated to Chicago when he was 12. He learned guitar and would hang around outside the clubs in the hope of being invited in to play. One day his dream came true and Howlin’ Wolf, no less, invited him onstage. Luther often played behind harp legend…

PERCY MAYFIELD

Often called ‘The Poet Laureate of the Blues’, Percy Mayfield had a warm, rich voice that scored a string of hit Blues Ballads in the early 50s for Art Rupe‘s fledgling Specialty label in LA. His song ‘Two Years of Torture’ got Percy started when he sent it to Jimmy Witherspoon‘s record company and they…

LUCILLE BOGAN

Lucille Bogan is infamous in the history of the Blues as the writer of some of the most sexually explicit songs ever committed to record. Her song ‘Shave ‘Em Dry’, recorded under the pseudonym Bessie Jackson, begins “I’ve got nipples on my titties as big as the end of my thumb/ Got somethin’ ‘tween my…

ROBERT SHAW

Distinctive and influential Texan piano player Robert Shaw paid for his own piano lessons as a kid, because his parents didn’t approve. He would leave the farm and travel into Houston, where he picked up a liking for barrelhouse style playing, and earned a living on the ‘Santa Fe Circuit’, following the freight train routes.…

JIMMY WITHERSPOON

Jimmy Witherspoon was a Blues Shouter in the Kansas City tradition, but his versatility gave him the chance to excel in other settings, notably with jazz and swing bands as well as in soulful and funky styles. He explored the borderlands between jazz and the Blues so successfully over such a long career, his genre…

MAGIC SLIM

Magic Slim had a career spanning nearly 60 years and three dozen albums, as the leader of legendary Chicago band The Teardrops. Schooled in the ‘second wave’ of Chicago Blues coming out of the West-side clubs in the late 50s, Slim’s heavy vibrato guitar, roaring deep voice and commanding stage presence made him a formidable…

WILLIE BROWN

When Robert Johnson sang his seminal ‘Crossroads Blues’, in the last verse he tells how he is running away, but asks for ‘my friend Willie Brown’. That line immortalised Willie for future generations, but in truth he did enough in his own right to gain a page in Blues History, despite having recorded only three…

LOUIS ARMSTRONG

‘Satchmo’ was arguably the greatest Jazz player of the 20th Century. His offbeat vocal style crossed over to Blues singers as well as mainstream acts in the 20s when record companies discovered the ‘race‘ market. As the Blues migrated from the Delta and other country sources to cities like Chicago and New York, there was…