Saunders Terrell, better known as Sonny Terry (24 October 1911, Greensboro, North Carolina - 11 March 1986, Mineola, New York[1]) was a blind blues musician. He was most widely known for his energetic blues harmonica style, which frequently included vocal whoops and hollers, and imitations of trains and fox hunts. He is also an accomplished Jews harp player.

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John "Memphis Slim" Chatman (born September 3, 1915, Memphis, Tennessee; died February 24, 1988, in Paris, France) was a blues pianist, singer, and composer. He led a series of bands that, reflecting the popular appeal of jump-blues, included saxophones, bass, drums, and piano. His 1952 composition "Every Day I Have the Blues" was recorded by Joe Williams, and Lowell Fulson, B. B. King, Ray Charles, Eric Clapton, Natalie Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Jimi Hendrix, Mahalia Jackson, Sarah Vaughan, Carlos Santana, Lou Rawls, to name a few. He cut over 500 recordings and influenced blues pianists that followed him for decades.
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Robert Lee McCollum (30 November 1909 – 5 November 1967) was an American bluesman who played and recorded under the names Robert Lee McCoy and Robert Nighthawk.



Born in Helena, Arkansas, he left home at an early age to become a busking musician, and after a period wandering through southern Mississippi settled for a time in Memphis, Tennessee. There he played with local orchestras and musicians, such as the Memphis Jug Band. A particular influence was Houston Stackhouse, from whom he learnt to play slide guitar, and with whom he appeared on the radio in Jackson, Mississippi.
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* 1 Robert Lee McCoy
* 2 Robert Nighthawk
* 3 Recordings
* 4 Sources and external links

Robert Lee McCoy

After further travels through Mississippi, he found it advisable to take his mother's name, and as Robert Lee McCoy he moved to St. Louis, Missouri. Local musicians with whom he played included Henry Townsend, Big Joe Williams, and Sonny Boy Williamson. This led to two recording dates in 1937, the four musicians recording together at the Victor Records studio in Aurora, Illinois, as well as recordings under his own name, including "Prowling Night-Hawk" (recorded 5 May 1937), from which he was take his later pseudonym.

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Big Joe Williams (born Joseph Lee Williams, October 16, 1903 - December 17, 1982) was an American Delta blues musician and songwriter, known for his characteristic style of guitar-playing, his nine-string guitar, and his bizarre, cantankerous personality.
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Career

Born in Crawford, Mississippi, as a youth Williams began wandering across the United States busking and playing stores, bars, alleys and work camps. In the early 1920s he worked in the Rabbit Foot Minstrels revue, and recorded with the Birmingham Jug Band in 1930 for the Okeh label.

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