This week's playlist

"Stop Breakin' Down Blues" - Robert Johnson
"Lovin, Kissin, Huggin'" - James 'Buddy' Rogers
"I'm On The Road Again" - James 'Buddy' Rogers
"Guitar Sue" - James 'Buddy' Rogers
"Long Tall Mama" - Big Bill Broonzy
"Choker" - Eric Clapton
"Rockin' Rollin' Stone" - Grainne Duffy
"Whoa Mule" - Tennessee Mafia Jug Band
"The Sun Is Shining" - Fleetwood Mac
"Colleen" - A Ton Of Blues
"From Four Until Late" - Robert Johnson
"Since I Met You Baby" - B.B. King & Katie Webster
"I'd Rather Go Blind" - Rod Stewart
"When You Got A Good Friend" - Robert Johnson
"Fives And Ones" - Ray Manzarek and Roy Rogers
"If You Were Mine" - Lil' Ed and The Blues Imperials
"Leaving Blues" - Big Maceo
"I Ain't Gonna Be Worried No More" - Sleepy John Estes
"Deeper Side Of Blue" - Walter Trout
"One Track Love" - Jimmy McCracklin
"Oh Papa Blues" - Ma Rainey
"Deep River" - John Oates Band
"Last Fair Deal Gone Down" - Robert Johnson
"Vivienne" - Louisiana Rd

Featured Artist: Robert Johnson

Robert Johnson
May 8, 1911 (?) - August 16, 1938 
50th Featured Artist

Robert Johnson was born in Hazlehurst, Mississippi, possibly on May 8, 1911, to Julia Major Dodds and Noah Johnson
If the blues has a truly mythic figure, one whose story hangs over the music the way a Charlie Parker does over jazz or a Hank Williams does over country, it's Robert Johnson, certainly the most celebrated figure in the history of the blues.
Of course, his legend is immensely fortified by the fact that he also left behind a small legacy of recordings that are considered the emotional apex of the music itself. These recordings have not only entered the realm of blues standards ("Love in Vain," "Crossroads," "Sweet Home Chicago," "Stop Breaking Down"), but were adapted by rock & roll artists as diverse as The Rolling Stones, Steve Miller, Led Zeppelin and Eric Clapton.
The legend of his life - which by now, even folks who don't know anything about the blues can cite to you chapter and verse - goes something like this: Robert Johnson was a young black man living on a plantation in rural Mississippi. Branded with a burning desire to become great blues musician, he was instructed to take his guitar to a crossroad near Dockery's plantation at midnight. There he was met by a large black man (the Devil) who took the guitar from Johnson, tuned it, and handed it back to him. Within less than a year's time, in exchange for his everlasting soul, Robert Johnson became the king of the Delta blues singers, able to play, sing, and create the greatest blues anyone had ever heard.
Of course, Robert Johnson's influences in the real world were far more disparate than the legend suggests, no matter how many times it's been retold or embellished.
As a teenage plantation worker, Johnson fooled with a harmonica a little bit, but seemingly had no major musical skills to speak of. Every attempt to sit in with local titans of the stature of Son House, Charley Patton, Willie Brown, and others brought howls of derision from the older bluesmen. He idolized the Delta recording star Lonnie Johnson - sometimes introducing himself to newcomers as "Robert Lonnie, one of the Johnson brothers" -- and the music of Scrapper Blackwell, Skip James and Kokomo Arnold were all inspirational elements that he drew his unique style from. His slide style certainly came from hours of watching local stars like Charley Patten and Son House, among others.
Although Robert Johnson never recorded near as much as Lonnie Johnson, Charley Patten, or Blind Lemon Jefferson, he certainly traveled more than all of them put together. After his first recordings came out and "Terraplane Blues" became his signature tune, Johnson hit the road, playing anywhere and everywhere he could.
In Jackson, Mississippi, around 1936, Johnson sought out H.C. Speir, who ran a general store and doubled as a talent scout. Speir put Johnson in touch with Ernie Oertle, who offered to record the young musician in San Antonio, Texas. The recording session was held on November 23, 1936 in room 414 of the Gunter Hotel in San Antonio, which Brunswick Records had set up to be a temporary recording studio. In the ensuing three-day session, Johnson played sixteen selections, and recorded alternate takes for most of these. Johnson reportedly performed facing the wall, which has been cited as evidence he was a shy man and reserved performer.
In 1937, Johnson traveled to Dallas, Texas, for another recording session in a makeshift studio at the Vitagraph (Warner Brothers) Building, 508 Park Avenue, where Brunswick Record Corporation was located on the third floor. Eleven records from this session would be released within the following year. Johnson did two takes of most of these songs and recordings of those takes survived. Because of this, there is more opportunity to compare different performances of a single song by Johnson than for any other blues performer of his time and place.
The end came at a Saturday-night dance at a juke joint in Three Forks, MS, in August of 1938. Playing with Honeyboy Edwards and Sonny Boy Williamson, Johnson was given a jug of moonshine whiskey laced with either poison or lye, presumably by the husband of a woman the singer had made advances toward. He continued playing into the night until he was too sick to continue, then brought back to a boarding house in Greenwood, some 15 miles away. He lay sick for several days, successfully sweating the poison out of his system, but caught pneumonia as a result and died on August 16th.
Research in the 1980s and 1990s strongly suggests Johnson was buried in the graveyard of the Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church near Morgan City, not far from Greenwood, in an unmarked grave.
A one-ton cenotaph in the shape of an obelisk, listing all of Johnson's song titles, with a central inscription by Peter Guralnick, was placed at this location in 1990, paid for by Columbia Records and numerous smaller contributions made through the Mt. Zion Memorial Fund.
In 1990 a small marker with the epitaph "Resting in the Blues" was placed in the cemetery of Payne Chapel near Quito, by the cemetery's owner. This alleged burial site, in an apparent attempt to strengthen a claim, happens to be located in the center of Richard Johnson's family plot.
More recent research by Stephen LaVere (including statements from Rosie Eskridge, the wife of the supposed gravedigger) indicates that the actual grave site is under a big pecan tree in the cemetery of the Little Zion Church, north of Greenwood along Money Road. Sony Music has placed a marker at this site.
Since his death Johnson's name and likeness has become a cottage growth merchandising industry. Posters, postcards, t-shirts, guitar picks, strings, straps, and polishing cloths -- all bearing either his likeness or signature (taken from his second marriage certificate) -- have become available, making him the ultimate blues commodity with his image being reproduced for profit far more than any contemporary bluesman, dead or alive. Although the man himself (and his contemporaries) could never have imagined it in a million years, the music and the legend both live on

This week's playlist

"Diving Duck Blues" - Sleepy John Estes
"When You Love Me" - Rory Block
"Deep River" - John Oates Band
"Thief In The Night" - Wesley Pruitt Band
"Smoke 'Em All" - Colin Linden
"One Room Country Shack" - Johnny Guitar Watson
"Voodoo Moon" - Anthony Gomes
"Viola Lee Blues" - Cannon's Jug Stompers
"Catfish Blues" - Corey Harris
"Down The Road Alone" - Sunday Wilde
"Good Morning Little School Girl" - Rory Block
"Stomp And Whistle" - Danny Overbea
"Ramblin' On My Mind" - Rory Block
"All By Myself" - Matt 'Guitar' Murphy and Memphis Slim
"Well Allright Then" - Mike Morgan
"Further On Up The Road" - The Powder Blues Band
"You're Gonna Need Me" - Luther Allison
"The End Of The Blues" - Earl Hooker
"Up The Line" - Paul Orta and The Kingpins
"The Spider And The Fly" - The Rolling Stones
"She's Tuff" - The Fabulous Thunderbirds
"Write Me A Few Of Your Lines" - Rory Block
"Dust My Broom" - Elmore James"Little Stevie's Shuffle" - The Elmores

Featured Artist: Rory Block

Rory Block

born November 6, 1949

Aurora “Rory” Block has staked her claim to be one of America's top acoustic blues women, an interpreter of the great Delta blues singers, a slide guitarist par excellence, and also a talented songwriter on her own account. Born and raised in Manhattan by a family that had bohemian leanings, she spent her formative years hanging out with musicians like Peter Rowan, John Sebastian and Geoff Muldaur, who hung out in her father's sandal shop, before picking up the guitar at the age of ten. Her record debut came two years later, backing her father on The Elektra String Band Project, a concept album. She met guitarist Stefan Grossman, who, like her, was in love with the blues. The pair would often travel to the Bronx to visit Reverand Gary Davis, one of the greatest living bluesmen.
At the tender age of 15 Block left home, hitting the road in true '60s fashion and traveling through the South, where she learned her blues trade at the feet of Skip James and Mississippi John Hurt, her greatest influence, before ending up in Berkeley. It was there that she developed her slide technique (she uses a socket wrench as her slide), but she didn't record until 1975, when she released “I'm In Love” (a compilation of earlier material, “The Early Tapes 1975-1976”, appeared later).
After two records for Chrysalis, she recorded the instructional “How To Play Blues Guitar” for Grossman's Kicking Mule label, and later moved to then-fledgling Rounder, with whom she enjoyed an ongoing relationship. She toured constantly, often playing as many as 250 dates in a year, which kept her away from her family -- she'd married and begun having children in the early '70s -- but developed her reputation as a strong, vibrant live performer, and one of the best players of old country blues in America.
In 1987 the best of Block's Rounder cuts were compiled on “Best Blues & Originals”, which, as it said, featured her interpretations of blues classics and some of her own material. Two of the tracks, released as singles in Belgium and Holland, became gold record hits.
In addition to her regular albums, Block made a series of instructional records and videos, as well as a children's record, “Color Me Wild”. Although she had been performing for a long time, the plaudits didn't really begin until 1992, when she won a NAIRD Award for “Ain't I A Woman”, a feat repeated in 1994 and 1997. In 1996 she began winning W.C. Handy Awards, first for Best Traditional Album (“When A Woman Gets The Blues”), and in 1997 and 1998 for Best Traditional Blues Female Artist. In 1997 she was elected to the CAMA Hall of Fame, and in 1999 she received yet another Handy Award, for Best Acoustic Blues Album (“Confessions Of A Blues Singer”).
Block continued to tour, although not as heavily as in earlier times, often accompanied by her grown son Jordon Block, who also plays on her albums. She remained busy in the early part of the 2000s, releasing six albums, including a live recording.
Issued in 2005, “From The Dust” drew rave critical reviews, as did 2006's “The Lady And Mr. Johnson”, an album that saw Block taking on selected songs of her musical hero, idol, and biggest influence, Robert Johnson. A digital video disc, “The Guitar Artistry Of Rory Block”, was released in 2008.”Shake 'Em On Down: A Tribute To Mississippi Fred McDowell”, which honored another of her country blues mentors, appeared in 2011.

This week's playlist

"Let's Call It The Blues" - Texas Alligator Blues Band
"Drinking The Blues" - Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee
"I'm A Man" - Bo Diddley
"Since I Met You Baby" - B.B. King and Katie Webster
"You Got It Coming" - Blues Thang
"Three Midnights" - Linda McRae
"R.F.C. Blues" - Jack Kelly and His Memphis Jug Band
"He's Got Me Going" - Bessie Smith
"I Just Wanna Make Love To You" - Etta James
"Blowin' The Fuses" - Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee
"Forever Truly Bound" - Bill Bourne and The Free Radio Band
"Down By The Riverside" - Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee
"2 Times 360" - The Veldman Brothers
"Barnyard Boogie" - Stone Crazy Blues Band
"Helluva Time" - The Blues Experience with Cash McCall
"Just Over The Hill" - Mahalia Jackson
"Confused" - Latvian Blues Band
"I Don't Like To Travel" - Byther Smith
"Trouble In Mind" - Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee
"Mess Around" - Professor Longhair

Featured Artist: Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee

Saunders Terrell, better known as Sonny Terry

(24 October 1911 - 11 March 1986)
Walter Brown ("Brownie") McGhee

(November 30, 1915 - February 16, 1996)

The joyous whoop that Sonny Terry naturally emitted between raucous harp blasts was as distinctive a signature sound as can possibly be imagined. Only a handful of blues harmonica players wielded as much of a lasting influence on the genre as did the sightless Terry (Buster Brown, for one, copied the whoop and all), who recorded some fine urban blues as a bandleader in addition to serving as guitarist Brownie McGhee's longtime duet partner.
Saunders Terrell's father was a folk-styled harmonica player who performed locally at dances, but blues wasn't part of his repertoire (he blew reels and jigs). Terry wasn't born blind, he lost sight in one eye when he was five, the other at age 18. That left him with extremely limited options for making any sort of feasible living, so he took to the streets armed with his trusty harmonicas. Terry soon joined forces with Piedmont pioneer Blind Boy Fuller, first recording with the guitarist in 1937 for Vocalion.
Terry's unique talents were given an extremely classy airing in 1938 when he was invited to perform at New York's Carnegie Hall at the fabled From Spirituals to Swing concert. He recorded for the Library of Congress that same year and cut his first commercial records in 1940.
Terry had met McGhee in 1939, and upon the death of Fuller, they joined forces, playing together on a 1941 McGhee date for OKeh and settling in New York as a duo in 1942. There they broke into the folk scene, working alongside Leadbelly, Josh White and Woody Guthrie.
While Brownie McGhee was incredibly prolific in the studio during the mid-'40s, Terry was somewhat less so as a leader (perhaps most of his time was occupied by his prominent role in Finian's Rainbow on Broadway for approximately two years beginning in 1946). There were sides for Asch and Savoy in 1944 before three fine sessions for Capitol in 1947 (the first two featuring Stick McGhee rather than Brownie on guitar) and another in 1950.
Terry made some nice sides in an R&B mode for Jax, Jackson, Red Robin, RCA Victor, Groove, Harlem, Old Town, and Ember during the '50s, usually with Brownie close by on guitar. But it was the folk boom of the late '50s and early '60s that made Brownie and Sonny household names (at least among folk aficionados). They toured long and hard as a duo, cutting a horde of endearing acoustic duet LPs along the way, before scuttling their decades-long partnership amidst a fair amount of reported acrimony during the mid-'70s.
Terry died from natural causes at Mineola, New York, in March 1986, the year he was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame.


One of McGhee's final concert appearances was at the 1995 Chicago Blues Festival.
McGhee died from stomach cancer in February 1996 in Oakland, California at the age of 80

This week's playlist

"Be Careful How You Vote" - Sunnyland Slim
"Boom Boom" - Eric Burdon and The Animals
"Top Side" - The No Refund Band
"Got Whiskey" - The No Refund Band
"7 Days" - Stormcellar
"Blues In The Rain" - Eddie Kelly's Washboard Band
"Steamroller Blues" - The  Reclamators
"Mississippi Man" - Rory Block
"Just To Be Blue" - The No Refund Band
"Holler And Stomp" - The Cash Box Kings
"One More Drink" - The No Refund Band
"Lovin, Kissin, Huggin" - James 'Buddy' Rogers
"Bayou Belle" - Eric Bibb
"Good Thinking" - Status Quo
"Tell Me Why" - John Pippus
"I'm Good" - Johnny Winter
"I Got What I Wanted" - Ted Hawkins
"Willie The Wimp" - The No Refunds Band
"Can't Afford To Do It" - Fleetwood Mac
"Blues All Over" - Eden Brent

Featured Artist: The No Refund Band

No Refund Band

If you would like to know what a mixture of Stevie Ray Vaughan, BB King, and Grand Funk Railroad sound like, listen to The No Refund Band and you will get taste of all of these styles mixed into a genre all its own.
The No Refund Band was formed by Mike Crownover in 2007 as the fulfillment of lifelong dream of playing guitar in his own band. As with any new project, the band had a few early successes, but there were many bumps on the road as well including finding steady musicians, the right lead singer, the right gigs, etc… However, Crownover’s passion for music and for finding the right sound kept the band moving forward. While rolling over one of the bumps in the road, Crownover met Ricky Jackson and Rik Robertson who he hired to fill in for a gig in Ft. Worth, Texas. It didn’t take long for the partnership to gel into something more permanent as the trio found common ground in their musical interests.
Jackson would become the front man, with a soulful voice and penetrating guitar licks. Robertson, a studio musician provided the anchor to the band with his innovative bass lines. Both compliment the rock solid rhythms from Crownover. With a horn section featuring Anthony Terry and Jim Brady, the result is a versatile band that can deliver everything from hard driving blues to melodic acoustic tunes that leave you wanting more.
This is the debut recording for the No Refund Band, but don’t confuse that with inexperience. Collectively, the band members have toured and recorded full time for multiple decades.
No Refund Band has evolved into a solid team of songwriters, band mates & friends that seem to personify the stuff successful bands are made of. While staying close to the bluesier side of things, the band has its own definitive style regardless of the genre, from covering “Eleanor Rigby” to the acoustic originals “Come Down Slow” and “Fall Again”, to more classic blues styles like “Just To Be Blue”, “Blues Is My Business” and “One More Drink”. Making a guest appearance on the CD is the totally awesome Tommie Lee Bradley, bringing her sassy & soulful vocals to the mix.