Singer | All About Blues Music

BARKIN’ BILL SMITH

Bill Smith had a rich smooth baritone voice that gave his Blues songs an urbane, sophisticated quality which was exactly opposite to what might be expected from his stage-name, especially as the man was a stylish dresser and had an eye for the ladies. Born in rural Mississippi in the mid-30s, Bill Smith sang in…

STICK McGHEE

‘Stick’ McGhee is not so well known as his brother Brownie, but he wrote some great boozy Blues songs, and one of them, ‘Drinkin’ Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee’, has become a classic, covered many times down the years, including versions by Jerry Lee Lewis, Wynonie Harris, Larry Dale and Mike Bloomfield’s Electric Flag. Granville McGhee was born…

SON SEALS

Chicago guitarist Son Seals spent his whole career carrying the flag for the powerful ‘West-side’ guitar breaks pioneered in the solos of Otis Rush and Magic Sam back in the late 50s and early 60s. Son’s rawboned Blues guitar licks could convey joyful high energy, deep rage and anger, and a smiling confident swagger, and…

ANDY FAIRWEATHER-LOW

Andy Fairweather-Low has that light but fatally cracked vocal quality that is very simpatico with a Blues tune. The plaintive appeal that radiates from his version of ‘Gin House’ on the first Amen Corner album opened a lot of young ears to the emotional power of the Blues. Andy pursued a successful solo career in…

TONY JOE WHITE

Tony Joe White is a great singer/songwriter who has penned several classic tunes for big R&B, Soul and Country stars, and his deeply soulful voice took one of his own recordings high in the singles chart. He was one of the first artists to bring electric Swamp Blues to Europe, and his later work has…

JESSIE MAE HEMPHILL

Jessie Mae Hemphill played the primitive Blues of the hill country of North Mississippi, east of the Delta. Typical of the district, her music has the evocative one-chord boogie beat that is so insistent it seems to penetrate the listener like a virus, resulting in foot-tapping, body swaying and eventually full-on juke dancing. Juke-joints are…

BUTTERBEANS and SUSIE

Butterbeans and Susie were a husband and wife double-act who took their vaudeville revue around the Southern circuit and the big cities for many decades. With Susie as the overbearing but frustrated wife and Butterbeans as the inadequate but wise-cracking husband, they combined the hilarity of their skits on domestic life with Blues songs laced…

SEASICK STEVE

Watching Jools Holland’s ‘Hootenanny’ on New Years Eve is something of a tradition among British Jazz and Blues fans of a certain age. At millions of parties it burbles away on the TV in the corner, waiting for Jools to count down to Midnight, but in 2006 a man came on the Hootenanny and immediately…

JOHNNY LAWS

For nearly 50 years Johnny Laws has been playing the Blues around the Southside clubs in Chicago and, apart from a couple of excellent albums in the 90s, he has never caused much of a stir outside his own community. That’s a shame because Johnny has a great voice: his passionate falsetto and smooth delivery…

IMELDA MAY

Imelda May is a self-reliant artist who writes her own material and has produced or co-produced all her work to date, and her material certainly has Rock’n’Roll roots, but her voice and phrasing have Jazz and Blues influences all over them. She is a modern musician with a clear vision of the qualities required to…