Guitar | All About Blues Music

SAM CHATMON

When Sam Chatmon was ‘re-discovered’ during the Folk/Blues revival around 1960, musicologists found they had a true original on their hands. Sporting a wild grey beard, Sam had been playing and singing since he was a child, and his repertoire of old Blues, especially the raunchy songs that celebrated the Delta Blues in their heyday,…

DICK TAYLOR

Dick Taylor is a British Blues guitarist who played with Mick Jagger and Keef Richards before they were in a band, and went on to form The Pretty Things. Mick and Dick went to the same school in Dartford, near London and when Dick went to Sidcup Art School, he met up with Keef. The…

SLEEPY JOHN ESTES

Sleepy John Estes was an important and influential re-discovery of the Folk/Blues revival of the early 60s. His guitar work was never more than rudimentary, but his clear piercing voice conveyed his authentic and personal country Blues to a new generation of fans and performers, and his songs live on in the work of many…

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…

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…

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…