Vocals | All About Blues Music

R L BURNSIDE

Like his friend and mentor, Mississippi Fred McDowell, RL Burnside was a farmer from the hill country of north-east Mississippi. He could play his rhythmic and often lyrical slide-guitar very much in the style of his long time neighbour Fred, and like him RL was a late entrant into the world of recording and touring,…

DR. JOHN

Dr. John is the living embodiment of New Orleans. Talented, scary, steeped in tradition, no stranger to drugs and violence, but always entertaining; Dr. John is also the character adopted by Mac Rebennack when it’s Showtime! With roots deep in jazz and R&B, with costumes and voodoo imagery coupled with that distinctive growl and piano…

LITTLE JOHNNY JONES

Mississippi born Johnny was a stalwart of the post-War Blues scene in Chicago, as a session pianist and side-man for Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Jimmy Reed and Magic Sam. He was a pretty good barrelhouse pianist when he arrived in Chicago from Jackson MS, at the age of 22, and was soon taking the stage…

JUNIOR PARKER

A voice as sweet as honey and a clean, clipped harp sound made Junior Parker a Blues star in the 50s with many hit records. From busking on streetcorners, he was recruited by a Blues legend, was signed by major labels and fronted a renowned touring show. He managed to keep one foot in the…

ANSON FUNDERBURGH

White Blues guitarists like Anson’s fellow Texans Johnny Winter and Stevie Ray Vaughan made the point that you don’t have to be Black to play the Blues, which was a moot point among music critics back in the day. Listening to classic Blues records and seeing Freddie King, Jimmy Reed and Albert Collins playing in…

CAREY BELL

Carey Bell was a Blues harp master whose technique incorporated the wild flares of Little Walter and the intricate melodic style of Big Walter ‘Shakey’ Horton. His long career as a side-man has been punctuated by solo albums and spells as a band-leader, sometimes sharing the stage with his son, the guitarist Lurie Bell. Born…

JOHN HAMMOND Jr.

John Hammond Jr. has enjoyed a long career playing country Blues on his National Steel guitar and Blues harp, carrying a technique soaked in the Delta to stages all over the world. John is no country copyist, as his electric guitar work shows, but his dedication to acoustic Blues has done a lot to preserve…

MOSE ALLISON

Pianist and singer/songwriter Mose Allison has suffered throughout his career from being hard to categorise. Mose has a laid-back, smoky vocal tone well suited to both jazz and Blues. He can play boogie-woogie and slow drag-out blues, but he recorded a lot of wild bebop in jazz trio form. He wrote some great songs of…

SUSAN TEDESCHI

Susan Tedeschi was destined for a career in music. She was on the Broadway stage as a six-year-old and preferred Baptist churches to her Italian family’s Catholic kind, because the singing was more fun! Susan started her first band at 13 and when she was 18, she formed Smoking Section to perform original material before…

BONNIE RAITT

Bonnie Raitt embodies how far Blues music has come in a century. She is the opposite of a poor black man, yet her sensitive and soulful slide-playing speaks of bone-hard times and her warm, subtle approach to a vocal line shows the profound empathy that Blues music awakens in the human heart. In 1949, Bonnie…