“For some reason, Big Joe Williams wasn't taken quite as seriously by blues buffs in the '60s as he should have been. I think it was probably because, unlike Son House and Skip James who had been long-lost and found again, or Charley Patton and Robert Johnson who were seriously enigmatic stiffs, Big Joe had kept right on being there, a working musician. Like Fred McDowell, he was ever so slightly taken for granted for being mainly present on modern recordings. Foolish really, because also like McDowell (who similarly has another mind-bogglingly wonderful one of these "Over 60 Minutes Of Classic Blues" Arhoolie CDs to himself) he was just dynamite.

Big Joe played a 9-string guitar which he pounded, slapped and drove like a demented downhill slalom through a thicket of seminal Delta blues, singing in a gutsy, raw, emotion-exhausting voice. Many of his songs were loosely constructed around the beaten chassis of a familiar Mississippi tune or riff, but in his hands they were totally personal, often topical masterpieces. And in spite of a shoe-string budget for Arhoolie founder Chris Strachwitz when he recorded the bulk of these tracks back in 1960, the re-mastered CD sound just jumps out of the speakers and tears chunks off you with its teeth. If I had to pick a CD to try and hook a newcomer to country blues, this would surely be one of the candidates.”

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.

Read More...

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.
Contents

Read More...