Tag Archives: Blues
A Fantastic Song
Earlier today, I listened to Just to Be with You by Johnnie Johnson. In fact, I listened to it twice. It was so good that I went back and listened again. It’s originally an old Muddy Waters song written by Bernard Roth. This version features Phoebe Snow on vocals and Buddy Guy on lead guitar. […]
Cool (Christmas) Blues
Charles Brown is a fascinating figure in American music. He’s great, first of all. Absolutely great. He’s legendary in the blues and traditional R&B worlds, but most people now probably don’t know him by name. He was a singer, pianist, and songwriter. The easiest way to describe Brown’s sound is he is where Ray Charles […]
Dr. John aka Mac Rebennack
Mac Rebennack, whose alter ego was the much more famous Dr. John, died today. I am a big fan of his music. True to form for me, I know virtually nothing about his life. Apparently he was 77 years old. That’s a little older than I would have guessed. So, I can’t say much about […]
Music Genres
I’ve always had a bit of a problem separating things like music by genres. In a recent piece I wrote, I made the statement, “I tend to think of all worthwhile American music as being a type of blues.”* I knew when I typed it that the statement would bother some people. People have a […]
Music Collecting – The Blues
A long time ago, I wrote this piece about collecting classical music. It was so long ago that it was on a different blog. I’m still working on the project of cataloging my record collection. After I finished classical, I moved on to blues. It’s taken me a while to get everything in, but now […]
B.B. King
The first time I saw B.B. King perform live was 1992 or 1993. I’m pretty sure it was my senior year of high school, but I don’t remember which side. Before I went, a guy that I worked with told me that seeing B.B. is, “like going to church.” I didn’t really understand what he […]
Live & Loud 1968 by Freddie King – A Review
Towards the end of last year, I was browsing in a record store and ran across a new release of a Freddie King concert from 1968. Since I’m a fan, I took a closer look. The bulk of the album was record live at the Fillmore West in 1968. There are two bonus tracks, one from […]
A Story About The Holmes Brothers
Update: Wendell Holmes died today from complications due to pulmonary hypertension. This isn’t surprising since he posted this open letter a few days ago. In honor of his life, I thought I’d re-post the piece I wrote in January when we lost Popsy. Willie “Popsy” Dixon died on Friday of bladder cancer. For those who […]
The Allman Brothers Band
I was lucky enough to attend the final Allman Brothers Band concert at the Beacon Theatre in New York City. When I first found out I was going, I thought I might write a review and post it here. But, I soon realized that to write a review correctly, I would need to take notes […]
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