Singer | All About Blues Music

FAYE ADAMS

Faye Adams started young as a singer when she performed in her father’s Gospel choir on the radio in their hometown of Newark NJ at the age of five. By the late 40s she was a regular on the New York club circuit, and Atlantic recording artist Ruth Brown recomended Faye to Joe Morris, trumpeter…

BOBBY ‘BLUE’ BLAND

If you went to see The Beale Streeters in Memphis in the late 40s, you might find BB King, Junior Parker, Johnny Ace, Rosco Gordon and Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland on stage. The gigs and broadcasts made by this loose collection of players launched many careers, some very long and one tragically short, and gave the…

ETHEL WATERS

Ethel Waters a.k.a. ‘Sweet Mama Stringbean’ was an early Blues Diva who went on to a long career as a jazz singer in vaudeville, in nightclubs, then in movies and eventually as a stage actress. With a gift for phrasing that gave her songs a distinctive swing, Ethel was a rival to Bessie Smith as…

SISTER WYNONA CARR

Wynona Carr had everything a girl needs to be a big star; a great voice with range, colour and dynamic control; a pretty face that looked good on publicity material; stage presence; songwriting talent; a powerful sense of ambition: and yet she lacked the vital ingredient of Dumb Luck! She was not the first to…

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…

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…

LONG JOHN BALDRY

In the early 60s, Chicago Blues was a source of inspiration for a generation of young players in the UK who were looking for a way of expressing their frustration with a dull and restrictive post-WWII society. When they heard Muddy Waters’ moan, Elmore James’ searing guitar, and Jimmy Reed’s simple but powerful songs, the…

BROTHER JOE MAY

Probably the greatest Gospel singer of all time. ‘The Thunderbolt of the Middle West’ had a massive vocal range and unparalleled dynamic control, slipping effortlessly from a whisper to an earth-moving blast. His commanding stage presence and superb delivery could have made him a Blues star, but he would have nothing to do with secular…

WEEPIN’ WILLIE

William Lorenzo Robinson was a Georgia sharecropper who wound up in Trenton NJ after the War, where he spent many years as the MC and singing as the warm up act in the local nightclub. During this period, he befriended BB King and sang with the great man and his band at the club sevearal…

SHIRLEY COLLINS

English folk singer Shirley, met Alan Lomax in 1954 when he was living in London. They became romantically involved and also performed together in a ‘skiffle group’ with Ewan McColl and Peggy Seeger. Five years later, Shirley travelled to The States with Alan to make some field recordings as part of his work for the…