Singer | All About Blues Music

‘DOC’ CLAYTON

Doc Clayton was a great Blues singer and song-writer who made a big contribution to Chicago Blues in the 30s and 40s. Like many characters in Blues History, his origins are shrouded in mystery and he came to a bad end, but while he was around his clever songs, full of double-entendre, his strong voice…

TOMMY CASTRO

With a hat-full of Blues Music Awards and a dozen good-selling albums, Tommy Castro is a consummate modern Bluesman. He sings like a 60s Soul star, plays guitar riffs that would not be out of place in a 50s Chicago club, and he has taken those talents around the world. Tommy remains a modest character,…

LOWELL GEORGE

Lowell George was a slide-guitar player of such exquisite skill, good taste and influence, he is one of an élite group of musicians, including Bonnie Raitt, Duane Allman and Ry Cooder, who can be said to have changed the sound of modern Rock music with their mastery of lyrical ‘bottleneck’ technique. Lowell Thomas George was…

MARCIA BALL

Texas and the Gulf Coast has produced some of the best modern music in the Blues tradition, and Austin, Texas maintains its reputation as the epicentre of the genre. Long-time resident Marcia Ball is a formidable pianist with a strong sense of swing and a sweet-toned voice to carry off her largely self-written repertoire. While…

BLIND JOE REYNOLDS

Blind Joe Reynolds was the nom-de-Blues of Joe Sheppard, an early Blues singer and guitarist who lived a surprisingly long life, mostly outside the law. Disputed reports of his origins put his birthplace as Tallulah LA in 1904, although others cite somewhere in Arkansas in 1900, and a nephew claims he was actually called Joe…

FRANKIE Half-Pint JAXON

Drag acts are not usually associated with The Blues, but in the Speakeasies of Harlem and Chicago, during the ‘Roaring 20s’, it was a case of ‘anything goes’. Gladys Bentley wore a top-hat and tux as she charmed the customers of New York clubs, and in Chicago, Frankie ‘Half Pint’ Jaxon would amaze his audiences…

SAM MYERS

Sam Myers was born in Mississippi and learned his trade in Chicago, working for many years with Elmore James, but after a long spell on the ‘chitlin circuit’, he gained a whole new career as the front man for Anson Funderburgh and the Rockets. Sam was a big-voiced singer, a sparkling harp soloist and talented…

SUPER CHIKAN

The Blues started out in over a hundred years ago as a rural music, and many of the originators of Blues music wrote songs with agricultural themes, with work songs, or ballads about crops or pests or the weather, and about their own dogs and mules. Old country harp players might imitate farmyard animals in…

GARY CLARK Jr.

Texas has played an important rôle in the story of the Blues, with old timers like Blind Lemon Jefferson, innovators like T-Bone Walker, stars of the Blues Revival like Lightnin’ Hopkins and modern guitar heroes like Johnny Winter and Stevie Ray Vaughan. A young man who has absorbed some of the magic of his Lone-Star…

ROBERT McCOY

Robert McCoy was an Alabama pianist who was active on the Birmingham Blues scene for over four decades from the mid 30s. He is easily confused with Robert Lee McCullum, who used the name McCoy while playing slide-guitar in St. Louis before moving on to Chicago to find fame as Robert Nighthawk. He is unrelated…