Singer | All About Blues Music

TONY ‘TS’ McPHEE

When the British Blues Boom was getting underway, Tony McPhee was one of the kids that followed Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies around and then decided to play the Blues themselves. He had learned his chops playing the Blues club circuit so thoroughly that his band The Groundhogs were asked to back John Lee Hooker…

BIG DADDY KINSEY

Big Daddy Kinsey played a range of Blues that told of his Delta roots and the Golden Age of Chicago Blues, and with the wider influences of his sons in The Kinsey Report, included funky rock and reggae in an act that appealed to Blues fans all over the world. Lester Kinsey of Pleasant Grove…

RY COODER

American popular music has its roots in dozens of diverse traditions, and most of them have been investigated by Ry Cooder as he played a wide selection of stringed instruments. A highly skilled guitar picker, his wise and amusing selection of songs on a long series of albums have broadened many horizons, and pricked many…

LUCILLE HEGAMIN

Lucille was the best selling Blues Diva in 1921/22 and she was still recording forty years later. Billed as ‘The Georgia Peach’ Lucille Nelson learned to sing in Church and went on the road as a singer in a tent show while she was still a teenager. She married pianist Bill Hegamin in 1914 and…

LOU ANN BARTON

Lou Ann Barton is a sassy Texas Blues singer who belts out her roadhouse Blues with a passion that should have made her much more well known. A legend on the Austin music scene, she knows how to put on a show and her distinctive, full-bodied voice and her commanding stage presence makes Lou Ann…

JAMES ‘THUNDERBIRD’ DAVIS

This gospel sounding Blues singer from Pritchard AL got started in 1957 as an opening act for Guitar Slim, who gave him the ‘Thunderbird’ tag after a drinking contest. Duke Records of Houston signed James up and his emotive style on ‘Blue Monday’ and ‘Your Turn to Cry’ were great examples of the current Blues…

JANIS JOPLIN

With a voice capable of conveying excruciating pain and heartbreaking tenderness, Janis put herself out there in every performance, lost in the music and with raw emotion bleeding from every note. Some Blues Divas go on for ever, and some just aren’t meant to make old bones. Janis Joplin was one of the latter, joining…

GLADYS BENTLEY

A ‘Drag King’ who sings the Blues is a rare item! Gladys Bentley was a male impersonator who sang and played piano on the New York gay club scene in the late 20s in places like The Clam House and The Ubangi Club. She was a big woman who wore a tuxedo and top hat…

JOHNNY ACE

Johnny Alexander had a short but brilliant career until he blew his own brains out backstage at his Christmas show. In the late 40s, Johnny could be found playing piano and singing in the clubs around his native Memphis. He was part of the loose collective of Blues musicians known as The Beale Streeters with…

RUFUS THOMAS

Rufus Thomas was a Soul giant in the 60s and a comedy disco act in the 70s, but before that he had been a big player on the Memphis R&B scene. He went on the road almost straight out of school, working as a comedian in travelling shows, including the Rabbit’s Foot Minstrels. When he…