Guitar | All About Blues Music

SMOKEY SMOTHERS

Firstly, there are TWO Smokey Smothers! Like the case of Sonny Boy Williamson, two men were playing the same instrument, and using the same name at the same time, but this time it was in the same town, and sometimes they even played in the same band! We will call them Big Smokey and Little…

FLOYD JONES

In the early days of electric Blues in Chicago, a lot of young musicians from the South were trying to get their songs recorded, but it was made difficult by the ‘Petrillo Ban’ on recording, which lasted for over two years as musicians fought for royalty payments for their music when it was played on…

BUSTER BENTON

Even when The Blues is going through one of its slow spells, some performers still come to the fore who have something powerful and urgent to communicate. Buster Benton was one of those guys who put his body and soul into his music: his emotive vocals and heartfelt guitar lines gave his slow Blues an…

JACK WHITE

Millions of young music fans got their first taste of Blues guitar played with a soulful slide by Jack White of The White Stripes. His adaptations of Son House‘s songs were a central plank of the Detroit garage band’s early repertoire, and Jack’s love of that original Blues has informed much of his work. Since…

RONNIE WOOD

Ron Wood is best known as the mirror image of Keef Richard cranking out guitar riffs for The Rolling Stones behind the exuberant Mick Jagger and in front of the inscrutable Charlie Watts, as they continue to fill the world stage. He performed in similar style with The Faces, but outside the lime-light, there is…

FREDDIE SPRUELL

Often cited as the first Delta Bluesman to make a record, Freddie Spruell cut his ‘Milk Cow Blues’ c/w ‘Muddy Water Blues’ on June 25th 1926 in Chicago. After a brief career with the Okeh label, ‘Papa Freddie’ or ‘Mr. Freddie’ made several more records in 1935 for Bluebird, but his total output came to…

DEREK TRUCKS

The Tedeschi Trucks Band is one of the most exciting talents to emerge onto the Blues scene in the last decade, and their success shows the continuing durability and world-wide appeal of our music. Derek Trucks is a slide-guitar player of great power and sensitivity, and his wife Susan Tedeschi is a passionate singer who…

LARRY DALE

Larry Dale was a Texan guitarist and singer who played some swinging electric Blues in New York in the 50s; played on some seminal records; had a brief career as a bandleader, and was still active in Harlem in the 1990s. Ennis Lowery was Larry’s original name, and he was born in Hungerford Texas in…

DANNY KIRWAN

The first incarnation of Fleetwood Mac was as a hard-rocking Blues band, but when Danny Kirwan joined Peter Green on guitar and contributed his songwriting abilities to the mix, a more complex and mellow blend of music emerged. When Peter left the band, Danny assumed a more central rôle, but his struggle with alcohol, and…

PAPA CHARLIE JACKSON

Papa Charlie Jackson’s ‘Lawdy, Lawdy Blues’ was the first commercially successful Blues song recorded by a man. In an age when ‘Race Music‘ was a new phenomenon, dozens of Blues Divas were recording for the major companies, but the idea of a black man singing about the hardships of his life was a politically sensitive…