This week's playlist

"Monday Morning Blues" - Mississippi John Hurt
"Party On" - John Pippus
"Tell Me Why" - John Pippus
"Didn't I Say" - The Mustangs
"Hot Tomales And They're Red Hot" - Jake Leg Jug Band
"It's A Sin" - Guitar Mikey
"Whiskey River Blues" - Shameless Rob Band
"All Your Love" - The Deluxe Blues Band
"Captured Me" - Sunday Wilde
"Save Some Mercy For Me" - Sandi Thom
"Walk On" - Cee Cee James
"I'm On The Road Again" - James 'Buddy' Rogers
"Blues Is My Business" - No Refunds Band
"That's What Love Will Do" - Shaun Murphy
"What'd I Say" - Geno Washington
"Holler And Stomp" - The Cash Box Kings

This week's playlist

"Christmas Train" - Carey Bell
"The Christmas Song" - Mark jungers
"Christmas Day Blues" - Cephas and Wiggins
"Please Let Me Be Your Santa Claus" - William Clarke
"Stay A Little Longer Santa" - Shemekia Copeland
"Fattening Up The Turkey" - Dave Hole
"Christmas Iz Coming" - Christmas Jug Band
"Back Door Santa" - The Holmes Brothers
"Christmas Time" - Lil' Ed and The Blues Imperials
"Santa Claus" - Little Charlie & The Nightcats
"Zydeco Christmas" - C.J. Chenier and The Red Hot Louisianna Band
"It's Christmas Time Again" - JD Myers
"X-Mas Blues" - The Preston Shannon Band

"A Bluesman's Christmas" - Coco Montoya
"Christmas Time In The Country" - Kenny Neal
"Santa Claus, Do You Ever Get The Blues" - Roomful Of Blues
"Lonesome Christmas" - Son Seals
"Merry Merry Christmas" - Koko Taylor
"Deck The Halls With Boogie Woogie" - Katie Webster
"Really Been Good This Year" - Saffire: The Uppity Blues Women
"Santa Claus" - Bo Carter

This week's playlist

"Strange Fruit" - Pete 'Snakey Jake' Johnson
"I'm Cryin'" - Stevie Ray Vaughan
"I Ain't Superstitious" - The Jeff Beck Group
"Don't Cry" - Shirley Jackson & The Good Rockin' Daddies
"21 Days In Jail" - Magic Sam
"Mud Bears Park" - Tippy Agogo and Bill Bourne
"Beale Street Breakdown" - Jed Davenport and His Jug Band
"Bring It On Home" - Hawkwind
"Hey Santa Claus" - Jillaine
"Christmastime Blues" - Jaimi Shuey
"Cold Shot" - Stevie Ray Vaughan
"I Wanna Be" - Riot and The Blues Devils
"Lights Out" - Dr. Feelgood
"Ain't Gone 'N' Give Up On Love" - Stevie Ray Vaughan
"Boogie Woogie Santa Claus" - Charles Brown
"Chemistry" - Jack Derwin
"I Won't Be Your Fool" - A Ton Of Blues
"Christmas Snow" - Michael Burks
"Backup Plan" - Mark Robinson
"Chick 4 Christmas" - Chick Willis
"Good Texan" - The Vaughan Brothers
"I Can't Quit You Baby" - Led Zeppelin

Featured Artist: Stevie Ray Vaughan

Stephen "Stevie" Ray Vaughan

                        (October 3, 1954 – August 27, 1990)
With his astonishingly accomplished guitar playing, Stevie Ray Vaughan ignited the blues revival of the '80s. Vaughan drew equally from bluesmen like Albert King, Otis Rush and Muddy Waters and rock & roll players like Jimi Hendrix and Lonnie Mack, as well as the stray jazz guitarist like Kenny Burrell, developing a uniquely eclectic and fiery style that sounded like no other guitarist, regardless of genre.
Vaughan bridged the gap between blues and rock like no other artist had since the late '60s. For the next seven years, Stevie Ray was the leading light in American blues, consistently selling out concerts while his albums regularly went gold. His tragic death in 1990 only emphasized his influence in blues and American rock & roll.
Born and raised in Dallas, Vaughan began playing guitar as a child, inspired by older brother Jimmie. When he was in junior high school, he began playing in a number of garage bands, which occasionally landed gigs in local nightclubs. By the time he was 17, he had dropped out of high school to concentrate on playing music.
Vaughan's first real band was the Cobras, who played clubs and bars in Austin during the mid-'70s. Following that group's demise, he formed Triple Threat in 1975. Triple Threat also featured bassist Jackie Newhouse, drummer Chris Layton, and vocalist Lou Ann Barton. After a few years of playing Texas bars and clubs, Barton left the band in 1978. The group decided to continue performing under the name Double Trouble, which was inspired by the Otis Rush song of the same name; Vaughan became the band's lead singer.
For the next few years, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble played the Austin area, becoming one of the most popular bands in Texas. In 1982, the band played the Montreux Festival and their performance caught the attention of David Bowie and Jackson Browne.
After Double Trouble's performance, Bowie asked Vaughan to play on his forthcoming album, while Browne offered the group free recording time at his Los Angeles studio, Downtown; both offers were accepted. Stevie Ray laid down the lead guitar tracks for what became Bowie's “Let's Dance” album in late 1982. Shortly afterward, John Hammond Sr. landed Vaughan and Double Trouble a record contract with Epic, and the band recorded its debut album in less than a week at Downtown.
Vaughan's debut album, “Texas Flood”, was released in the summer of 1983, a few months after Bowie's “Let's Dance” appeared. On its own, “Let's Dance” earned Vaughan quite a bit of attention, but “Texas Flood” was a blockbuster blues success; receiving positive reviews in both blues and rock publications, reaching number 38 on the charts, and crossing over to album rock radio stations. Bowie offered Vaughan the lead guitarist role for his 1983 stadium tour, but he turned him down, preferring to play with Double Trouble. Vaughan and Doucle Trouble set off on a successful tour and quickly recorded their second album, “Cou;dn't Stand The Weather”, which was released in May of 1984. The album was more successful than its predecessor, reaching number 31 on the charts; by the end of 1985, the album went gold.
Double Trouble added keyboardist Reese Wynans in 1985, before they recorded their third album, “Soul To Soul”. The record was released in August 1985 and was also quite successful, reaching number 34 on the charts.
Although his professional career was soaring, Vaughan was sinking deep into alcoholism and drug addiction. Despite his declining health, Vaughan continued to push himself, releasing the double live album “Live Alive” in October of 1986 and launching an extensive American tour in early 1987. Following the tour, Vaughan checked into a rehabilitation clinic. The guitarist's time in rehab was kept fairly quiet, and for the next year Srevie Ray and Double Trouble were fairly inactive. Vaughan performed a number of concerts in 1988, including a headlining gig at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, and wrote his fourth album. The resulting record, “In Step”, appeared in June of 1989 and became his most successful album, peaking at number 33 on the charts, earning a Grammy for Best Contemporary Blues Recording, and going gold just over six months after its release.
In the spring of 1990, Stevie Ray recorded an album with his brother Jimmie, which was scheduled for release in the autumn of the year.
In the late summer of 1990, Vaughan and Double Trouble set out on an American headlining tour. On August 26, 1990, their East Troy, WI, gig concluded with an encore jam featuring guitarists Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy, Jimmie Vaughan and Robert Cray. After the concert, Stevie Ray boarded a helicopter bound for Chicago. Minutes after its 12:30 a.m. takeoff, the helicopter crashed, killing Vaughan and the other four passengers. He was only 35 years old.
"Family Style”, Stevie Ray's duet album with Jimmie, appeared in October and entered the charts at number seven. “Family Style” began a series of posthumous releases that were as popular as the albums Vaughan released during his lifetime.
“The Sky Is Crying”, a collection of studio outtakes compiled by Jimmie, was released in October of 1991; it entered the charts at number ten and went platinum three months after its release.
“In The Beginning”, a recording of a Double Trouble concert in 1980, was released in the autumn of 1992 and the compilation “Greatest Hits” was released in 1995.
In 1999, Vaughan's original albums were remastered and reissued, with “The Real Deal: Greatest Hits, Vol. 2” also appearing that year. 2000 saw the release of the four-disc box “SRV”, which concentrated heavily on outtakes, live performances, and rarities.

This week's playlist

"Blue Railroad Train" - Doc Watson
"A Spoonful Of Blues" - Charlie Patton
"Walk On" - Grant Lyle
"Honky Tonk Girl" - Pete Anderson
"Chained" - Shaun Murphy
"My Babe" - Narvel Felts
"Jug Rag" - The Prairie Ramblers
"Bottle Up And Go" - Hooker 'N' Heat
"Reconsider Baby" - Elvis Presley
"Screamin' And Hollerin' The Blues" - Charlie Patton
"But Anyway" - Blues Traveler
"Monday Morning Blues" - Mississippi John Hurt
"Stone Pony Blues" - Charlie Patton
"ESP" - Eliza Neals
"The Hoodoo Shake" - The Some X 6 Band
"All I Want For Christmas (Is To Be With You)" - Lonnie Brooks
"Up The Line" - Paul Orta and The Kingpins
"Christmas Fais Do Do" - Marcia Ball
"Why Me" - Dellie Hoskie
"Winter Time Blues" - Big Maceo
"34 Blues" - Charlie Patton
"Tollin' Bells" - Lowell Fulson and Willie Dixon

Featured Artist: Charley Patton

Charley (or Charlie) Patton
1891 (?) - April 28th 1934

Patton was born in Hinds County, Mississippi near the town of Edwards, and lived most of his life in Sunflower County in the Mississippi Delta . Most sources say he was born in 1891, but there is some debate about this, and the years 1887 and 1894 have also been suggested.
Though Patton was considered African-American, because of his light complexion there have been rumors that he was Mexican, or possibly a full-blood Cherokee, a theory endorsed by Howlin' Wolf. In actuality, Patton was a mix of white, black, and Cherokee (one of his grandmothers was a full-blooded Cherokee). Patton himself sang in "Down the Dirt Road Blues" of having gone to "the Nation" and "the Territo'"—meaning the Cherokee Nation portion of the Indian Territory.
If the Delta country blues has a convenient source point, it would probably be Charley Patton, its first great star. His hoarse, impassioned singing style, fluid guitar playing, and unrelenting beat made him the original king of the Delta blues. Much more than your average itinerant musician, Patton was an acknowledged celebrity and a seminal influence on musicians throughout the Delta.
Although Patton was a small man at about 5 foot 5, his gravelly voice was rumored to have been loud enough to carry 500 yards without amplification. Patton's gritty bellowing was a major influence on the singing style of his young friend Chester Burnett, who went on to gain fame in Chicago as Howlin' Wolf.
His guitar playing was no less impressive, fueled with a propulsive beat and a keen rhythmic sense that would later plant seeds in the boogie style of John Lee Hooker.
His slide work -- either played in his lap like a Hawaiian guitar and fretted with a pocket knife, or in the more conventional manner with a brass pipe for a bottleneck -- was no less inspiring, finishing vocal phrases for him and influencing contemporaries like Son House and up-and-coming youngsters like Robert Johnson.
Most of the now-common guitar gymnastics modern audiences have come to associate with the likes of a Jimi Hendrix, in fact, originated with Patton, who gained notoriety for his showmanship, often playing with the guitar down on his knees, behind his head, or behind his back.
He first recorded in 1929 for the Paramount label and, within a year's time, he was not only the largest-selling blues artist but -- in a whirlwind of recording activity -- also the music's most prolific.
No one will never know what Patton's Paramount masters really sounded like. When the company went out of business, the metal masters were sold off as scrap, some of it used to line chicken coops. All that's left are the original 78s -- rumored to have been made out of inferior pressing material commonly used to make bowling balls -- and all of them are scratched and heavily played, making all attempts at sound retrieval by current noise-reduction processing a tall order indeed.
That said, it is still music well worth seeking out and not just for its place in history. Patton's music gives us the first flowering of the Delta blues form, before it became homogenized with turnarounds and 12-bar restrictions, and few humans went at it so aggressively.
He died on the Heathman-Dedham plantation near Indianola on April 28, 1934 and is buried in Holly Ridge. A memorial headstone was erected on Patton's grave, paid for by musician John Fogerty through the Mt. Zion Memorial Fund in July, 1990.

This week's playlist

"Bring It On Home To Me" - The Angel Band
"Unemployment" - J.J. Cale
"Show Me A Man" - Sunday Wilde
"I Can't Shake That Guy" - Sunday Wilde
"I Dreamed About Muddy Waters Last Night" - John Pippus
"Walkin' Cane Stomp" - Kentucky Jug Band
"Black Dog Blues" - The Barrelhouse Brothers
"I'm A Mover" - Free
"Down Hearted Blues" - Bessie Smith
"James Alley Blues" - Richard 'Rabbit' Brown
"Captured Me" - Sunday Wilde
"When The Train Comes Back" - Chicken Shack
"It's Gonna Rain" - Philipp Fankhauser
"I Don't Live Anywhere" - Joe Bonamassa
"I Can't Be Satisfied" - Big Bill Broonzy
"Train Kept A-Rolling" - The Yardbirds
"Holy Water" - Jon Amor Blues Group
"He Thrills Me Up" - Sunday Wilde
"The Hard Way" - Danny Bryant's Redeye Band

Featured artist: Sunday Wilde

Sunday Wilde

Sunday Wilde is from the wilds of a small northern Ontario town, but she has been found singing everywhere from small logging and mining towns at coffee houses, funeral parlours, and blues joints and all the way to large festivals, house concerts and bars in bustling metropolises.
She has won jazz and blues awards with co-writers and her own compositions on garageband and has been ranked as high as 8 on Myspace Canada Gospel music charts.
Beyond her powerful vocal delivery is her equally powerful lyrical delivery which shows us all that she understands the ups and downs one can go through and thoroughly knows how to deliver that message, via her music, and people seem to have started to take notice.
She is influenced by the greats, such as, Ruth Brown, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Bessie Smith, Big Bill Broonzy, Tom Waits, Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald, to name a few of the more prominent ones. Her delivery of the styles of those greats is probably as good as most anyone else can do in these modern times and it is a delivery that perhaps isn't quite offered nearly enough in todays overly popped up music scene

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.

Featured Artist - Screamin' Jay Hawkins

 Screamin' Jay Hawkins

(July 18, 1929-February 12, 2000)

Screamin' Jay Hawkins was an outrageous performer prone to emerging out of coffins on-stage, with a flaming skull named Henry his constant companion, Screamin' Jay was an insanely theatrical figure long before it was even remotely acceptable!
 
Born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, Hawkins studied classical piano as a child and learned guitar in his twenties.His initial goal was to become an opera singer but when his initial ambitions failed he began his career as a conventional blues singer and pianist.
In 1951, Hawkins joined guitarist Tiny Grimes's band, and was subsequently featured on some of Grimes's recordings.When Hawkins became a solo performer, he often performed in a stylish wardrobe of leopard skins, red leather and wild hats.

His most successful recording, "I Put a Spell on You" (1956), was selected as one of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. According to the AllMusic Guide to the Blues, "Hawkins originally envisioned the tune as a refined ballad." The entire band was intoxicated during a recording session where "Hawkins screamed, grunted, and gurgled his way through the tune with utter drunken abandon." The resulting performance was no ballad but instead a "raw, guttural track" that became his greatest commercial success and reportedly surpassed a million copies in sales. The performance was mesmerizing, although Hawkins himself blacked out and was unable to remember the session. Afterward he had to relearn the song from the recorded version.Soon after the release of "I Put a Spell on You", radio disc jockey Alan Freed offered Hawkins $300 to emerge from a coffin onstage. Hawkins accepted and soon created an outlandish stage persona.

Hawkins died on February 12, 2000 after surgery to treat an aneurysm. He left behind many children by many women; an estimated 55 at the time of his death, and upon investigation, that number "soon became perhaps 75 offspring.

This week's playlist

"Black Cat Bone" - Sam Lightnin' Hopkins
"Please Don't Leave Me" - Screamin' Jay Hawkins
"I Put A Spell On You" - Creedence Clearwater Revival
"Blue Ghost Blues" - Lonnie Johnson
"Evil" - Howlin' Wolf
"Feral Beast" - The Timothy Hay
"Hoodoo Lady" - Memphis Minnie
"Seven Sisters Blues" (parts 1 and 2) - J.T. Smith
"Same Damn Thing" - Screamin' Jay Hawkins
"Raise Hell" - Riot And The Blues Devils
"Somebody Done Hoodooed The Hoodoo Man" - Louis Jordan
"What's Gonna Happen On The 8th" - Screamin' Jay Hawkins
"I've Been Tricked" - Casey Bill Weldon
"Black Night" - Todd Wolfe
"Hoodoo Party" - King Biscuit Boy
"Howling Wolf" - Muddy Waters
"Swamp Monster" - Stormcellar
"Voodoo Moon" - Anthonyh Gomes
"The Supernatural" - John Mayall's Bluesbreakers (with Peter Green)
"Itty Bitty Pretty One" - Screamin' Jay Hawkins
"Ghost Blues" - Rory Gallagher

As we are getting near our 50th Featured Artist, it might be a good idea to open it up to your nominations.
Which blues performer, that we haven't already featured, would you have as our 50th Featured Artist?
If you're a regular listener, you know the score. We play all kinds of blues, so don't feel restricted in your choice. Any era. Any style, as long as it's blues.
Get your nominations in via this blog site, email kev.walker@thisisthecat.com, jen.vc@thisisthecat.com or visit our facebook page.

Today's Playlist

Lazy Poker Blues - Status Quo
The Sky Is Falling Down - Walter Trout
Get It Right - King Biscuit Boy
Prayer Changes Things - Mahalia Jackson
Whiskey and Wimmen - Hooker 'N' Heat
I'm A King Bee - Slim Harpo
Feather Bed - Cannon's Jug Stompers
Midnight In Memphis - J.J. Cale
Diddie Wah Diddie - Blind Blake
Wrapped Up in The Blues - Walter Trout
Minnie The Moocher - The Blues Brothers (feat Cab Calloway)
Highway Blues - Savoy Brown
Playing With A Losin' Hand - Walter Trout
Crazy Blues - Mamie Smith
Never Leave Me At Home - Frank Frost
She's Gone With The Wind - Wynonie Harris
I'd Rather Go Blind - Chicken Shack
Stalkin' - Stringbean and the Stalkers
The Sheik Waltz - Mississippi Sheiks
See That My Grave Is Kept Clean - Blind Lemon Jefferson
I Can't Be Satisfied - Big Bill Broonzy
Deeper Shade Of Blue - Walter Trout
Feel My Love Come Down - Cee Cee James