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W.C. Handy

William Christopher Handy (November 16, 1873 – March 28, 1958) was a blues composer and musician, often known as the "Father of the Blues".

Handy remains among the most influential of American songwriters. Though he was one of many musicians who layed the distinctively American form of music known as the blues, he is credited with giving it its ontemporary form.
While Handy was not the first to publish music in the blues form, he took the blues from a not very well-known regional music style to one of the dominant forces in American music.
Handy was an educated musician who used folk material in his compositions. He was scrupulous in documenting he sources of his works, which frequently combined stylistic influences from several performers.

He loved his folk musical form and brought his own transforming touch to it.



Son House

Eddie James "Son" House, Jr. (March 21, 1902 – October 19, 1988) was an American blues singer and guitarist.
House pioneered an innovative style featuring strong, repetitive rhythms, often played with the aid of slide
guitar, and his singing often incorporated elements of southern gospel and spiritual music.

House was an important influence on Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson. A seminal Delta blues figure, he
remains influential today, with his music being covered by blues-rock groups such as The White Stripes.



Bessie Smith

Bessie Smith (April 15, 1894 – September 26, 1937) was an American blues singer.

Sometimes referred to as "The Empress of the Blues," Smith was the most popular female blues singer of the 920s and 1930s.
She is often regarded as one of the greatest singers of her era and, along with Louis Armstrong, a major influence on subsequent jazz vocalists.



Robert Johnson

Robert Leroy Johnson (May 8, 1911 – August 16, 1938) was an American blues singer and musician.
His landmark recordings from 1936–1937 display a remarkable combination of singing, guitar skills and
songwriting talent that have influenced generations of musicians.

Johnson's shadowy, poorly documented life and death at age 27 have given rise to much legend, including a Faustian myth.

Johnson's songs, vocal phrasing and guitar style have influenced a broad range of musicians; Eric Clapton has called Johnson "the most important blues singer that ever lived".
Johnson was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as an "Early Influence" in their first induction ceremony in 1986.
He was ranked fifth in Rolling Stone's list of 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.



B.B. King

Riley B. King (born September 16, 1925), known by the stage name B.B. King, is an American blues guitarist and singer-songwriter acclaimed for his expressive singing and guitar playing.
Rolling Stone magazine ranked him at #3 on its list of the "100 greatest guitarists of all time."
According to Edward M. Komara, King "introduced a sophisticated style of soloing based on fluid string
bending and shimmering vibrato that would influence virtually every electric blues guitarist that followed."



T-Bone Walker

T-Bone Walker (May 28, 1910 — March 16, 1975) was an American blues guitarist, singer, pianist, and
songwriter who was one of the most important pioneers of the electric guitar.
He was the first blues musician to use an electric guitar.
In September 2003, he was ranked #47 in Rolling Stone magazine's list of "The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".



Muddy Waters

McKinley Morganfield (April 4, 1913 – April 30, 1983), known as Muddy Waters, was an American blues
musician, generally considered "the Father of Chicago blues".
Blues musicians Big Bill Morganfield and Larry "Mud Morganfield" Williams are his sons. A major inspiration for the British blues explosion in the 1960s, Muddy was ranked #17 in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.



Little Walter

Little Walter, born Marion Walter Jacobs (May 1, 1930 – February 15, 1968), was an American blues harmonica player whose revolutionary approach to his instrument has earned him comparisons to Charlie Parker and Jimi Hendrix for innovation and impact on succeeding generations.
His virtuosity and musical innovations fundamentally altered many listeners' expectations of what was
possible on blues harmonica.
Little Walter's body of work earned him a spot in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008 making him the only artist ever to be inducted specifically for his work as a harmonica player.



Lonnie Johnson

Alonzo "Lonnie" Johnson (February 8, 1899 – June 16, 1970) was an American blues and jazz singer/guitarist and songwriter who pioneered the role of jazz guitar and is recognized as the first to play single-string guitar solos.



John Lee Hooker

ohn Lee Hooker (August 22, 1917 – June 21, 2001) was an American blues singer-songwriter and guitarist, born near Clarksdale, Mississippi.
Hooker began his life as the son of a sharecropper, William Hooker, and rose to prominence performing his own unique style of what was originally closest to Delta blues. He developed a 'talking blues' style that
was his trademark.
Though similar to the early Delta blues, his music was metrically free. John Lee Hooker could be said to
embody his own unique genre of the blues, often incorporating the boogie-woogie piano style and a driving
rhythm into his masterful and idiosyncratic blues guitar and singing.
His best known songs include "Boogie Chillen" (1948) and "Boom Boom" (1962).

Hooker's life experiences were chronicled by several scholars and often read like a classic case study in
the racism of the music industry, although he eventually rose to prominence with memorable songs and
influence on a generation of musicians.



Blind Lemon Jefferson

"Blind" Lemon Jefferson (September 24, 1893 – at some point in Mid-December, 1929) was a blues singer and guitarist from Texas.
He was one of the most popular blues singers of the 1920s, and has been titled "Father of the Texas Blues".
Jefferson's singing and self-accompaniment were distinctive as a result of his high-pitched voice and
originality on the guitar.
He was not influential on some younger blues singers of his generation, as they did not seek to imitate him as they did other commercially successful artists. However, later blues and rock and roll musicians
attempted to imitate both his songs and his musical style.



Elmore James

Elmore James (January 27, 1918 – May 24, 1963) was an American blues guitarist, singer, song writer and band leader.
He was known as The King of the Slide Guitar and had a unique guitar style, noted for his use of loud
amplification and his stirring voice.



Willie Dixon

William James "Willie" Dixon (July 1, 1915 – January 29, 1992) was an American blues musician, vocalist,
songwriter, arranger and record producer.
A Grammy Award winner who was proficient on both the Upright bass and the guitar, as well as his own singing voice, Dixon is arguably best known as an acclaimed, prolific songwriter, and one of the founders of the Chicago blues sound.
His songs have been recorded not only by himself, or that of the trio and other ensembles in which he
participated, but an uncounted number of musicians representing many genres between them.
A short list of his most famous compositions include "Little Red Rooster", "Hoochie Coochie Man", "Evil",
"Spoonful", "Back Door Man", "I Just Want to Make Love to You", "I Ain't Superstitious", "My Babe", "Wang
Dang Doodle", and "Bring It On Home".

They were written during the peak of Chess Records, 1950–1965, and performed by Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and Little Walter, influencing a worldwide generation of musicians.
Next to Muddy Waters, he was the most influential person in shaping the post World War II sound of the
Chicago blues.

He also was an important link between the blues and rock and roll, working with Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley in the late 1950s.
His songs were covered by some of the biggest artists of more recent times, including Bob Dylan, Cream, Led eppelin, Foghat, The Yardbirds, The Rolling Stones, Queen, The Doors, The Allman Brothers Band, the Grateful Dead, and a posthumous duet with Colin James.

Freddie King

Freddie King (September 3, 1934 - December 28, 1976) possibly born Frederick Christian, originally recording as Freddy King, and nicknamed "the Texas Cannonball", was an influential African-American blues guitarist and singer.
He was often seen mentioned as one of "the Three Kings" of electric blues guitar - with the longer-living
Albert King and B.B. King.

Freddie King based his guitar style on Texas and Chicago influences and was one of the first bluesmen to
have a multiracial backing band onstage with him at live performances. He is best known for such singles as "Have You Ever Loved A Woman" (1960) and his Top 40 hit "Hide Away" (1961).
He is also known for such albums as the early, instrumental-packed Let's Hide Away and Dance Away with
Freddy King (1961) and the later Burglar (1974), which displayed King's mature versatility as both player
and singer in a range of blues and funk styles.

King had a twenty-year recording career and became established as an influential guitarist with his
early-1960s hits for Federal Records.
He inspired American musicians from Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jimmie Vaughan, to Bill Freeman and Rehab's Denny Campbell, and such mid-1960s UK blues revivalists as Eric Clapton, Peter Green, and Chicken Shack. King died from heart failure on December 28, 1976, age forty two.



Billie Holiday

Billie Holiday (born Elinore Harris; April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959) was an American jazz singer and
songwriter.
Nicknamed Lady Day by her friend and musical partner Lester Young, Holiday was a seminal influence on jazz and pop singing. Her vocal style, strongly inspired by jazz instrumentalists, pioneered a new way of
manipulating phrasing and tempo.
Above all, she was admired all over the world for her deeply personal and intimate approach to singing.

Critic John Bush wrote that she "changed the art of American pop vocals forever."
She co-wrote only a few songs, but several of them have become jazz standards, notably "God Bless the
Child", "Don't Explain", "Fine and Mellow", and "Lady Sings the Blues". She also became famous for singing jazz standards including "Easy Living" and "Strange Fruit".



Stevie Ray Vaughan

Stephen Ray "Stevie Ray" Vaughan (October 3, 1954 – August 27, 1990) was a Grammy Award-winning American guitarist, singer, and songwriter.
Eighteen albums of Vaughan's work have been released.
Vaughan was inspired to play guitar by his older brother, Jimmie Vaughan, and was influenced by such players as Jimi Hendrix and Buddy Guy.
After a few years as a sideman in and around Austin, Vaughan formed the band Double Trouble, with whom he made four successful studio albums and established a reputation as one of the foremost blues guitarists in the world. He was noted for using the Fender Stratocaster, with several guitars being made in tribute to Vaughan, including a Signature Stratocaster and a replica of his famous Strat named "Lenny".
In 1986, after years of substance abuse from alcohol and cocaine, he spent a month in drug rehabilitation,
and remained clean and sober for the final four years of his life, until his death in 1990 in a helicopter
crash.
On February 22, 2000, Vaughan was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in Washington, D.C., being one of only 79 performers to be inducted.
He also won several W. C. Handy Awards, during his lifetime and posthumously, including Entertainer of the Year and Instrumentalist of the Year in 1984.
In 2003, he was ranked #7 in Rolling Stone's list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.

Classic Rock Magazine ranked him #3 in their list of the 100 Wildest Guitar Heroes in 2007.



Charlie Patton

Charlie Patton, better known as Charley Patton (Between April 1887 & 1891 – April 28, 1934) is best known as an American Delta blues musician.
He is considered by many to be the "Father of the Delta Blues" and therefore one of the oldest known figures of American popular music. He is credited with creating an enduring body of American music and personally inspiring just about every Delta blues man (Palmer, 1995).
Musicologist Robert Palmer considers him among the most important musicians that America produced in the twentieth century. Many sources, including musical releases and his gravestone, spell his name “Charley” even though the musician himself spelled his name "Charlie".

Ma Rainey

Gertrude Pridgett, or Ma Rainey (April 26, 1886 - December 22, 1939) was one of the earliest known American professional blues singers and one of the first generation of such singers to record.
She was billed as The Mother of the Blues. She did much to develop and popularize the form and was an
important influence on younger blues women, such as Bessie Smith, and their careers.

Pridgett began performing at 12–14. She recorded under the name Ma Rainey after she and Will Rainey were married in 1904. They toured with F.S. Wolcott’s Rabbit Foot Minstrels and later formed their own group called Rainey and Rainey, Assassinators of the Blues.
From the time of her first recording in 1923 to five years later, Ma Rainey made over 100 recordings. Some
of them include, Bo-weevil Blues (1923), Moonshine Blues (1923), See See Rider (1924), Black Bottom (1927), and Soon This Morning (1927).

Ma Rainey was known for her very powerful vocal abilities, energetic disposition, majestic phrasing, and a
‘moaning’ style of singing similar to folk tradition.
Though her powerful voice and disposition are not captured on her recordings, the other characteristics are
present, and most evident on her early recordings, Bo-weevil Blues and Moonshine Blues.
Ma Rainey also recorded with Louis Armstrong in addition to touring and recording with the Georgia Jazz
Band. Ma Rainey continued to tour until 1935 when she retired to her hometown.



Leadbelly

Huddie William Ledbetter (January 1888 – December 6, 1949) was an iconic American folk and blues musician, notable for his strong vocals, his virtuosity on the 12-string guitar, and the songbook of folk standards he introduced.

He is best known as Leadbelly or Lead Belly. Though many releases list him as "Leadbelly," he himself
spelled it "Lead Belly." This is also the usage on his tombstone, as well as of the Lead Belly Foundation.

Although he most commonly played the twelve string, he could also play the piano, mandolin, harmonica,
violin, concertina, and accordion. In some of his recordings, such as in one of his versions of the folk
ballad "John Hardy", he performs on the accordion instead of the guitar.
In other recordings he just sings while clapping his hands or stomping his foot.

The topics of Lead Belly's
music covered a wide range of subjects, including gospel songs; blues songs about women, liquor and racism; and folk songs about cowboys, prison, work, sailors, cattle herding and dancing.
He also wrote songs concerning the newsmakers of the day, such as President Franklin Roosevelt, Adolf
Hitler, Jean Harlow, the Scottsboro Boys, and Howard Hughes.



Howlin' Wolf

Chester Arthur Burnett (June 10, 1910 – January 10, 1976), better known as Howlin' Wolf, was an influential
American blues singer, guitarist and harmonica player.
With a booming voice and looming physical presence, Burnett is commonly ranked among the leading performers in electric blues; musician and critic Cub Koda declared, "no one could match Howlin' Wolf for the singular ability to rock the house down to the foundation while simultaneously scaring its patrons out of its wits."
Many songs popularized by Burnett—such as "Smokestack Lightnin'," "Back Door Man" and "Spoonful"—have become standards of blues and blues rock.

At 6 feet, 6 inches (198 cm) and close to 300 pounds (136 kg), he was an imposing presence with one of the loudest and most memorable voices of all the "classic" 1950s Chicago blues singers.
Howlin' Wolf's voice has been compared to "the sound of heavy machinery operating on a gravel road".
This rough-edged, slightly fearsome musical style is often contrasted with the less crude but still powerful
presentation of his contemporary and professional rival, Muddy Waters - although the two were reportedly not that different in actual personality - to describe the two pillars of the Chicago blues representing the
music.

Howlin' Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson (Rice Miller), Little Walter Jacobs and Muddy Waters are usually regarded in retrospect as the greatest blues artists who recorded for Chess in Chicago.
Sam Phillips once remarked, "When I heard Howlin' Wolf, I said, 'This is for me. This is where the soul of
man never dies.'" In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked him #51 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists
of All Time.



Louis Jordan

Louis Jordan (July 8, 1908 – February 4, 1975) was a pioneering American jazz, blues and rhythm & blues
musician, songwriter and bandleader who enjoyed his greatest popularity from the late 1930s to the early
1950s.
Known as "The King of the Jukebox", Jordan was highly popular with both black and white audiences in the
later years of the swing era.
In 2004, Rolling Stone Magazine ranked him #59 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.



Big Billy Broonzy

Big Bill Broonzy (26 June 1898 – 14 August 1958) was a prolific American blues singer, songwriter and
guitarist.
His career began in the 1920s when he played country blues to mostly black audiences. Through the ‘30s and ‘40s he successfully navigated a transition in style to a more urban blues sound popular with white
audiences.
In the 1950s a return to his traditional folk-blues roots made him one of the leading figures of the
emerging American folk music revival and an international star. His long and varied career marks him as one of the key figures in the development of blues music in the 20th century.
Broonzy copyrighted more than 300 songs during his lifetime, including both adaptations of traditional folk
songs and original blues songs. As a blues composer, he was unique in that his compositions reflected the many vantage points of his rural-to-urban experiences.



Sonny Boy Williamson II

Aleck "Rice" Miller (died May 25, 1965) was an American blues harmonica player, singer and songwriter.
He was also known as Sonny Boy Williamson II, Willie Williamson, Willie Miller, Little Boy Blue, The Goat
and Footsie.
Born as Aleck Ford on the Sara Jones Plantation in Tallahatchie County, Mississippi, his date and year of
birth are a matter of uncertainty. He claimed to have been born on December 5, 1899, but one researcher,
David Evans, claims to have found census record evidence that he was born around 1912. His gravestone lists his date of birth as March 11, 1908.
While tall tales, unlikely fables and outright lies make up much of what Sonny Boy Williamson II had to say
about his own life, his most important contributions have been documented well through countless recordings on myriad labels.
His output of recordings, both issued and unissued, for Lillian McMurray's Trumpet label, can be found on
Arhoolie, Alligator, Purple Pyramid, Collectables, plus a handful of other domestic and import imprints,
while his years as a resident of the Chess/Checker house appear on various compilations on MCA/Chess.
His European recordings reside on Alligator, Analogue Productions, Storyville, and others.

Sonny Boy Williamson II has had an influence onmodern day blues and blues rock artists, as is shown by the number of his songs that are still covered.

Professor Longhair

Professor Longhair (December 19, 1918 – January 30, 1980; born Henry Roeland Byrd, also known as Roy "Bald Head" Byrd and as Fess) was a New Orleans blues singer and pianist.
Professor Longhair is noteworthy for having been active in two distinct periods, both in the heyday of early

rhythm and blues, and in the resurgence of interest in traditional jazz after the founding of the New
Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.
The journalist Tony Russell, in his book The Blues – From Robert Johnson to Robert Cray, stated "The
vivacious rhumba-rhythmed piano blues and choked singing typical of Fess were too weird to sell millions of records; he had to be content with siring musical offspring who were simple enough to manage that, like Fats Domino or Huey "Piano" Smith.
But he is also acknowledged as a father figure by subtler players like Allen Toussaint and Dr. John."

Mamie Smith

Mamie Smith (May 26, 1883 – September 16, 1946) was an American vaudeville singer, dancer, pianist and actress, who appeared in several motion pictures late in her career.
As a vaudeville singer she performed a number of styles including jazz and blues. She entered blues history by being the first African American artist to make vocal blues recordings in 1920.



Blind Blake

"Blind" Blake (born Arthur Blake, circa 1893, Jacksonville, Florida; died: circa 1933) was an influential
blues/ragtime singer and guitarist. He is often called "The King of Ragtime Guitar".
Blind Blake recorded about 80 tracks for Paramount Records between 1926 and 1932.
He was one of the most accomplished guitarists of his genre with a surprisingly diverse range of material.
He is best known for his distinct guitar sound that was comparable in sound and style to a ragtime piano.



Robert Nighthawk

Robert Lee McCollum (November 30, 1909 – November 5, 1967) was an American blues musician who played and recorded under the pseudonyms 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 where he played with local orchestras and musicians, such as the Memphis Jug Band.
A particular influence during this period was Houston Stackhouse, from whom he learnt to play slide guitar,
and with whom he appeared on the radio in Jackson, Mississippi.

Memphis Minnie

Memphis Minnie (June 3, 1897 – August 6, 1973[1]) was an American blues guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter.
She was the only female blues artist who matched her male contemporaries as both a singer and an
instrumentalist.
Minnie lived to see her reputation revive in the 1960s as part of the general revival of interest in the
blues. In 1980, she was inducted into the Blues Foundation's Hall of Fame.



Leroy Carr

Leroy Carr (March 27, 1905 – April 29, 1935) was an American blues singer, songwriter and pianist who
developed a laid-back, crooning technique and whose popularity and style influenced such artists as Nat King Cole and Ray Charles.
He first became famous for "How Long, How Long Blues" on Vocalion Records in 1928.
Although his recording career was cut short by his early death, Carr left behind a large body of work in his
blues recordings. His partnership with guitarist Blackwell combined his light bluesy piano with a melodic
jazz guitar that attracted the sophisticated urban black audience.
His vocal style moved blues singing toward an urban sophistication and influenced such singers as T-Bone Walker, Charles Brown, Amos Milburn, Jimmy Witherspoon, Ray Charles among others.
Count Basie and Jimmy Rushing used some of Carr's songs and Basie's band shows the influence of Carr's piano style.
His music has been covered by notable artists such as Eric Clapton, Big Bill Broonzy, Moon Mullican,
Champion Jack Dupree, Lonnie Donegan and Memphis Slim.



Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup

Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup (August 24, 1905 — March 28, 1974) was a delta blues singer and guitarist.
He is best known outside blues circles for writing songs later covered by Elvis Presley and dozens of other
artists, such as "That's All Right" (1946), "My Baby Left Me" and "So Glad You're Mine."

Ida Cox

da Cox (February 25, 1896 – November 10, 1967) was an African American singer and vaudeville performer, best known for her blues performances and recordings. She was billed as "The Uncrowned Queen of the Blues".

Tampa Red

Tampa Red (January 8, 1904 - March 19, 1981), born Hudson Woodbridge but known from childhood as Hudson Whittaker, was an influential American musician.
Tampa Red is best known as an accomplished and influential blues guitarist who had a unique single-string bottleneck style.
His songwriting and his silky, polished slide technique influenced other leading Chicago blues guitarists,
such as Big Bill Broonzy and Robert Nighthawk, as well as Muddy Waters, Elmore James, Mose Allison and many others.
In a career spanning over 30 years he also recorded pop, R&B and hokum records.



Sonny Boy Williamson I

Sonny Boy Williamson (John Lee Curtis Williamson, March 30, 1914 — June 1, 1948) was an American blues harmonica player, and the first to use the name Sonny Boy Williamson.
He was born near Jackson, Tennessee in 1914. His original recordings were considered to be in the country blues style, but he soon demonstrated skill at making harmonica a lead instrument for the blues, and popularized it for the first time in a more urban blues setting.
He has been called "the father of modern blues harp".

Lightnin' Hopkins

Sam "Lightnin’" Hopkins (March 15, 1912 — January 30, 1982) was a country blues guitarist, from Houston,Texas, United States.
Hopkins' style was born from spending many hours playing informally without a backing band.
His distinctive fingerstyle playing often included playing, in effect, bass, rhythm, lead, percussion, and
vocals, all at the same time. He played both "alternating" and "monotonic" bass styles incorporating
imaginative, often chromatic turnarounds and single note lead
Tapping or slapping the body of his guitar added rhythmic accompaniment.

Much of Hopkins' music follows the standard 12-bar blues template but his phrasing was very free and loose.
Many of his songs were in the talking blues style, but he was a powerful and confident singer.
Lyrically his songs chronicled the problems of life in the segregated south, bad luck in love and other
usual subjects of the blues idiom. He did however deal with these subjects with humor and good nature.
Many of his songs are filled with double entendres and he was known for his humorous introductions.



Charles Brown

Charles Brown (September 13, 1922 – January 21, 1999), born in Texas City, Texas was an American blues singer and pianist whose soft-toned, slow-paced blues-club style influenced the development of blues performance during the 1940s and 1950s.
He had several hit recordings, including "Driftin' Blues" and "Merry Christmas Baby". In the late 1940s a rising demand for blues was driven by an increasing white teenage audience in the South
which quickly spread north and west. Blues shouters got the attention, but also greatly influential was what
writer Charles Keil dubbs "the postwar Texas clean-up movement in blues" led by stylists such as T-Bone
Walker, Amos Milburn and Charles Brown.
Their singing was lighter, more relaxed and they worked with bands and combos that had saxophone sections and used arrangements.



Junior Wells

Junior Wells (December 9, 1934 – January 15, 1998), born Amos Wells Blakemore Jr., was a blues vocalist and harmonica player based in Chicago, who was famous for playing with Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, Bonnie Raitt, The Rolling Stones and Van Morrison.



Mississipi John Hurt

Mississippi John Hurt (July 3, 1893or March 8, 1892— November 2, 1966) was an influential country blues singer and guitarist.
He sang in a loud whisper, to a melodious finger-picked guitar accompaniment.



Jimmy Reed

Mathis James "Jimmy" Reed (September 6, 1925 - August 29, 1976) was an American blues musician and
songwriter notable for bringing his distinctive style of blues to mainstream audiences.
Reed was a major player in the field of electric blues, as opposed to the more acoustic-based sound of many of his contemporaries.
His lazy, slack-jawed singing, piercing harmonica and hypnotic guitar patterns were one of the blues' most
easily identifiable sounds in the 1950s and 1960s.



Ray Charles

Ray Charles (September 23, 1930 – June 10, 2004) was an American musician. Charles was a pioneer in the genre of soul music during the 1950s by fusing rhythm & blues, gospel, and blues styles into his early
recordings for Atlantic Records.
He also helped racially integrate country and pop music during the 1960s with his crossover success on ABC.

Records, most notably with his Modern Sounds albums.[3][4][5] During his tenure with ABC, Charles became one of the first African-American musicians to be given artistic control by a mainstream record company.
In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked Charles number 10 on their list of "The 100 Greatest Artists of All Time", and
voted him number two on their November 2008 list of "The 100 Greatest Singers of All Time".



Blind Willie Johnson

"Blind" Willie Johnson (January 22, 1897 – September 18, 1945) was an American singer and guitarist whose music straddled the border between blues and spirituals.
While the lyrics of all of his songs were religious, his music drew from both sacred and blues traditions.
Among musicians, he is considered one of the greatest slide or bottleneck guitarists, as well as one of the
most revered figures of depression-era gospel music.
His music is distinguished by his powerful bass thumb-picking and gravelly false-bass voice, with occasional use of a tenor voice.



Big Mama Thornton

Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton (December 11, 1926 – July 25, 1984) was an American rhythm and blues singer and songwriter.
She was the first to record the hit song "Hound Dog" in 1952. The song was #1 on the Billboard R&B charts
for seven weeks. The B-side was "They Call Me Big Mama," and the single sold almost two million copies.

Three years later, Elvis Presley recorded his version, based on a version performed by Freddie Bell and the
Bellboys. In a similar occurrence, she wrote and recorded "Ball 'n' Chain," which became a hit for her. Janis Joplin later recorded "Ball and Chain," and was a huge success in the late 1960s.

Big Joe Turner

Big Joe Turner (born Joseph Vernon Turner Jr., May 18, 1911 – November 24, 1985) was an American blues shouter from Kansas City, Missouri.
According to the songwriter Doc Pomus, "Rock and roll would have never happened without him."
Although he came to his greatest fame in the 1950s with his pioneering rock and roll recordings,
particularly "Shake, Rattle and Roll", Turner's career as a performer stretched from the 1920s into the
1980s.



Albert Collins

Albert Collins (October 1, 1932 — November 24, 1993) was an electric blues guitarist and singer (and
occasional harmonica player) whose recording career began in the 1960s in Houston and whose fame eventually took him to stages across the U.S.A., Europe, Japan and Australia.
He had many nicknames, such as "The Ice Man", "The Master of the Telecaster" and "The Razor Blade".



Sleepy John Estes

John Adam Estes (January 25, 1899 or 1904 — June 5, 1977), best known as Sleepy John Estes or Sleepy John, was a U.S. blues guitarist, songwriter and vocalist, born in Ripley, Lauderdale County, Tennessee.
In 1991, Estes was posthumously inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame.

Rosco Gordon

Rosco Gordon (April 10, 1928 – July 11, 2002) was an African American blues singer and songwriter. He is
best known for his 1952 #1 R&B hit single, "Booted".



Otis Spann

Otis Spann (March 21, 1930 – April 24, 1970) was an American blues musician. Many aficionados considered him then, and now, as Chicago's leading postwar blues pianist.
He was posthumously elected to the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980.

Walter "Furry" Lewis

Furry Lewis (March 6, 1893 - September 14, 1981) was a country blues guitarist and songwriter from Memphis, Tennessee.
Lewis was one of the first of the old-time blues musicians of the 1920s to be brought out of retirement, and
given a new lease of recording life, by the folk blues revival of the 1960s.



Reverend Gary Davis

Reverend Gary Davis, also Blind Gary Davis, (April 30, 1896 – May 5, 1972) was a blues and gospel singer and guitarist who was also proficient on the banjo and harmonica.
His finger-picking guitar style influenced many other artists and his students in New York included Stefan
Grossman, David Bromberg, Roy Book Binder, Larry Johnson, Woody Mann, Nick Katzman, Dave Van Ronk, Tom Winslow, and Ernie Hawkins.
He has influenced the Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan, Jackson Browne, Townes van Zandt, Wizz Jones, Jorma
Kaukonen, Keb' Mo', Ollabelle and Resurrection Band.



Big Maceo

Big Maceo Merriweather (March 31, 1905 - February 23, 1953) was an American blues pianist and singer, active in Chicago in the 1940s.
In 2002 he was posthumously inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame.



Blind Boy Fuller

Blind Boy Fuller (born Fulton Allen) (July 10, 1907 - February 13, 1941) was an American blues guitarist and
vocalist.
He was one of the most popular of the recorded Piedmont blues artists with rural Black Americans, a groupthat also included Blind Blake, Josh White, and Buddy Moss.

Pinetop Smith

Clarence Smith, better known as Pinetop Smith or Pine Top Smith (11 June 1904 - 15 March 1929) was an
influential American boogie-woogie style blues pianist. He is a 1991 inductee of the Alabama Jazz Hall of
Fame.



Hound Dog Taylor

Theodore Roosevelt "Hound Dog" Taylor (April 12, 1915 - December 17, 1975) was an American blues guitarist and singer.
Taylor was posthumously inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1984.

Roosevelt Sykes

Roosevelt Sykes (January 31, 1906 – July 17, 1983) was an American blues musician also known as "The
Honeydripper".
He was a successful and prolific cigar-chomping blues piano player whose rollicking thundering boogie was highly influential.
Sykes had a long career spanning the pre-war and postwar eras. His pounding piano boogies and risqué lyrics characterize his contributions to the blues. He was responsible for influential blues songs such as "44 Blues," "Driving Wheel," and "Night Time Is the Right Time."
He was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1999.



Buddy Guy

George "Buddy" Guy (born July 30, 1936) is an American blues guitarist and singer.
He is the father of female rapper Shawnna and also has a son, Michael, known as hip-hop/rap producer
IceDrake. He is the older brother of late blues guitarist Phil Guy.
Guy is known for his showmanship, playing his guitar with drumsticks, or strolling into the audience while
playing solos. He was ranked thirtieth in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of
All Time".



Johnny Winter

John Dawson "Johnny" Winter III (born 23 February 1944) is an American blues guitarist, singer and producer.
Johnny and Edgar Winter were nurtured at an early age by their parents in their musical pursuits. Johnny
Winter is known for his southern blues and rock and roll style, as well as his physical appearance. Both he
and his brother were born with albinism.
In 2003 Winter was ranked 74th in Rolling Stone magazine list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".

Joseph Lee Williams (October 16, 1903 – December 17, 1982), billed throughout his career as Big Joe
Williams, was an American Delta blues guitarist, singer and songwriter, notable for the distinctive sound of
his nine-string guitar.
Performing over four decades, he recorded such songs as "Baby Please Don't Go", "Crawlin' King Snake" and "Peach Orchard Mama" for a variety of record labels, including Bluebird, Delmark, Okeh, Prestige and
Vocalion.
Williams was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame on October 4, 1992.
Blues historian Barry Lee Pearson (Sounds Good to Me: The Bluesman's Story, Virginia Piedmont Blues)
attempted to document the gritty intensity of the Big Joe persona in this description:
When I saw him playing at Mike Bloomfield's "blues night" at the Fickle Pickle, Williams was playing an
electric nine-string guitar through a small ramshackle amp with a pie plate nailed to it and a beer can
dangling against that. When he played, everything rattled but Big Joe himself. The total effect of this
incredible apparatus produced the most buzzing, sizzling, African-sounding music I have ever heard.

Slim Harpo

lim Harpo (January 11, 1924 – January 31, 1970) was an American blues musician.
He was known as a master of the blues harmonica and the name "Slim Harpo" was derived from "harp," the popular nickname for the harmonica in blues circles.



Etta James

Etta James (born Jamesetta Hawkins on January 25, 1938) is an American blues, soul, R&B, rock & roll, gospel and jazz singer and songwriter.
James is the winner of four Grammys and seventeen Blues Music Awards. She was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1993, the Blues Hall of Fame in 2001, and the Grammy Hall of Fame in both 1999 and 2008.
In the 1950s and 1960s, she had her biggest success as a blues and R&B singer. She is best known for
performing "At Last", which has been featured in movies, television shows, commercials, and web-streaming services.
James has a contralto vocal.



Tommy Johnson

Tommy Johnson (1896 – November 1, 1956) was an influential American delta blues musician, who recorded in the late 1920s, and was known for his eerie falsetto voice and intricate guitar playing.



Big Walter Horton

Walter Horton, better known as Big Walter Horton or Walter "Shakey" Horton, (April 6, 1917 – December 8,
1981) was an American blues harmonica player.
A quiet, unassuming and essentially shy man, Horton is remembered as one of the most influential harmonica players in the history of blues. Willie Dixon once called Horton "the best harmonica player I ever heard."



Sippie Wallace

Sippie Wallace (born as Beulah Thomas, November 1, 1898 in Houston, Texas; died November 1, 1986 in Detroit, Michigan) was an American Texas-styled blues singer, and songwriter.
Although her recording career stretched throughout most of the '20s, her best work was done from 1923 to
1927 when she was recording with Louis Armstrong, Johnny Dodds, Sidney Bechet, King Oliver, and Clarence Williams. She recorded over 40 songs for Okeh Records, many written by herself or her brothers, George and Hersal Thomas.
Among the top female blues vocalists of her era, Wallace ranked with Ma Rainey, Ida Cox, Alberta Hunter, and Bessie Smith.
Wallace was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1982, and was inducted into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame in 1993.



Amos Milburn

Amos Milburn (April 1, 1927 – January 3, 1980) was an African American rhythm and blues singer, and pianist, popular during the 1940s and 1950s. He was born and died in Houston, Texas.
The Texan boogie woogie pianist and singer was an important performer of blues music during the years
immediately after World War II. Milburn was one of the first performers to switch from sophisticated jazz arrangements to a louder "jump" blues.
He began to emphasize rhythm and technical qualities of voice and instrumentation second. His energetic
songs, about getting 'high', were admired by fellow musicians, such as Little Willie Littlefield, Floyd
Dixon and his prime disciple, Fats Domino.
He was a commercial success for eleven years and influenced many performers. Fats Domino credited Milburn consistently as an influence on his music.



Bobby Blue Bland

Robert Calvin Bland (born January 27, 1930) better known as Bobby “Blue” Bland, is an American singer of
blues and soul.
He is an original member of The Beale Streeters, and is sometimes referred to as the "Lion of the Blues".
Along with such artists as Sam Cooke, Ray Charles, and Junior Parker, Bland developed a sound that mixed gospel with the blues and R&B.
Bobby Bland was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1981, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992, and received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997.



Otis Rush

Otis Rush (born April 29, 1935 in Philadelphia, Mississippi) is a blues musician, singer and guitarist.
His distinctive guitar style features a slow burning sound and long bent notes. With similar qualities to
Magic Sam and Buddy Guy, his sound became known as West Side Chicago blues and became an influence on many musicians including Michael Bloomfield and Eric Clapton.
Rush is left-handed and, unlike many left-handed guitarists, plays a left-handed instrument strung
upside-down with the low E string at the bottom. He played often with the little finger of his pick hand
curled under the low E for positioning .
It is widely believed that this contributes to his distinctive sound. Other guitarists who restrung upside
down include Albert King and Dick Dale. He has a wide-ranging, powerful tenor voice.



Gus Cannon

Gus Cannon (September 12, 1883 – October 15, 1979) was an American blues musician who helped to popularize jug bands (such as his own Cannon's Jug Stompers) in the 1920s and 1930s.
There is doubt about his birth year; his tombstone gives the date as 1874.
Cannon can be seen in the King Vidor produced film, Hallelujah! (1929), during the late night wedding scene.



Magic Sam

Samuel "Magic Sam" Gene Maghett (February 14, 1937 – December 1, 1969) was an American blues musician.
Maghett was born in Grenada, Mississippi and learned to play the blues from listening to records by Muddy
Waters and Little Walter. After moving to Chicago at the age of nineteen, he was signed by Cobra Records and became well known as a bluesman after his first record, "All Your Love" in 1957.
He was known for his distinctive tremolo guitar playing.



Memphis Slim

Memphis Slim (September 3, 1915 – February 24, 1988) was an American 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. A song he first cut in 1947, "Every Day I Have the Blues," has become a blues standard,
recorded by many other artists.
Slim made over 500 recordings.



John Mayall

John Mayall, OBE (born 29 November 1933) is a pioneering English blues singer, songwriter, and
multi-instrumentalist.
His musical career spans over fifty years, but the most notable episode in it occurred during the late '60s.
He was the founder of John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers and, as a gifted talent-scout, has been influential in the careers of many instrumentalists, including Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, Peter Green, John McVie, Mick
Fleetwood, Mick Taylor, Don "Sugarcane" Harris, Harvey Mandel, Larry Taylor, Aynsley Dunbar, Hughie Flint,
Jon Hiseman, Dick Heckstall-Smith, Andy Fraser, Johnny Almond, Jon Mark, Walter Trout, Coco Montoya, and Buddy Whittington.



Champion Jack Dupree

William Thomas Dupree, best known as Champion Jack Dupree, was an American blues pianist. His birth date is disputed, given as July 4, July 10, and July 23, in the years 1908, 1909, or 1910. He died on January 21, 1992.
Although best known as a singer and pianist in the New Orleans style, Dupree occasionally pursued more
musically adventurous projects, including Dupree `n` McPhee, a collaboration with English guitarist Tony
McPhee, recorded for Blue Horizon Records.

Johnny Shines

Johnny Shines (April 26, 1915 – April 20, 1992) was an American blues singer and guitarist.
According to the music journalist Tony Russell, "Shines was that rare being, a blues artist who overcame age and rustiness to make music that stood up beside the work of his youth.

When Shines came back to the blues in 1965 he was 50, yet his voice had the leonine power of a dozen years before, when he made records his reputation was based on".


Julia Lee

Julia Lee (October 31, 1902 - December 8, 1958) was an American blues and dirty blues musician.
Born in Boonville, Missouri, Lee was raised in Kansas City, and began her musical career around 1920,
singing and playing piano in her brother George Lee's band, which for a time also included Charlie Parker.
She first recorded on the Merritt record label in 1927 with Jesse Stone as pianist and arranger, and
launched a solo career in 1935.
In 1944 she secured a recording contract with Capitol Records, and a string of R&B hits followed, including
"Gotta Gimme Whatcha Got" (#3 R&B, 1946), "Snatch and Grab It" (#1 R&B for 12 weeks, 1947, selling over
500,000 copies), "King Size Papa" (#1 R&B for 9 weeks, 1948), "I Didn't Like It The First Time (The Spinach
Song)" (#4 R&B, 1949), and "My Man Stands Out".
As these titles suggest, she became best known for her trademark double entendre songs, or, as she once
said, "the songs my mother taught me not to sing".
The records were credited to 'Julia Lee and Her Boy Friends', her session musicians including Jay McShann, Vic Dickenson, Benny Carter, Red Norvo, Nappy Lamare, and Red Nichols.
Although her hits dried up after 1949, she continued as one of the most popular performers in Kansas City
until her death in San Diego, California, at the age of 56, from a heart attack.

Josh White

Joshua Daniel White (February 11, 1914–-September 5, 1969), best known as Josh White, was a American singer, guitarist, songwriter, actor, and civil rights activist.
In the early 1930s, he also recorded under the names "Pinewood Tom" and "Tippy Barton."
White grew up in the Jim Crow South. He later became a 1920s and 1930s star of race records, with a prolific output of recordings in genres including Piedmont blues, country blues, gospel, and social protest songs.
He was billed in concert as "The Sensation of the South".
In 1931, White moved to New York and within a decade his fame had spread widely, and his repertoire expanded to include urban blues, jazz, Tin Pan Alley, cabaret, folk songs from around the world, and hard-hitting political protest songs. He soon was in demand as an actor on radio, Broadway, and film.
However, his pioneering guitar playing never altered or diminished, while some would even argue it broadened with the expansion of his musical repertoire.
White also would become the closest African-American friend and confidant to the president of the United
States, Franklin D. Roosevelt. Ironically however, White's anti-segregationist and international human
rights political stance presented in many of his recordings and in his speeches at rallies resulted in the
right-wing McCarthyites incorrectly assuming that he must have been a Communist.
Accordingly, from 1947 through the mid 1960s, White was caught in the vise grip of the anti-Communist Red Scare, and combined with his resulting attempt to clear his name, his career was harmed immeasurably.
However, regardless of the purists' debate over the artistic change in his presentation or from those who
opposed his politics, White unarguably inspired several generations of guitarists with his new and unique
stylings and techniques, and is cited as a major musical and social influence by dozens of future stars.
Including Blind Boy Fuller, Brownie McGhee, Pete Seeger, Lena Horne, Nat King Cole, Harry Belafonte, Lonnie Donegan, Eartha Kitt, Alexis Korner, Odetta, Ray Charles, Elvis Presley, the Kingston Trio, the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, Merle Travis, Dave Van Ronk, Peter, Paul and Mary, Bob Dylan, Eric Weissberg, Judy Collins, Mike Bloomfield, Danny Kalb, Roger McGuinn, David Crosby, Richie Havens, Don McLean, Roy Harper, Ry Cooder, John Fogerty,Eva Cassidy and Jack White.



Sister Rosetta Tharpe

Rosetta Tharpe (March 20, 1915 – October 9, 1973) was a pioneering gospel singer, songwriter and recording artist who attained great popularity in the 1930s and 1940s with a unique mixture of spiritual lyrics and early rock and roll accompaniment.
She became the first great recording star of gospel music in the late 1930s and also became known as the
"original soul sister" of recorded music.
Willing to cross the line between sacred and secular by performing her inspirational music of 'light' in the
'darkness' of the nightclubs and concert halls with big bands behind her, her witty, idiosyncratic style
also left a lasting mark on more conventional gospel artists, such as Ira Tucker, Sr., of the Dixie
Hummingbirds.
While she offended some conservative churchgoers with her forays into the world of pop music, she never left gospel music.

J.B. Hutto

J. B. Hutto (April 26, 1926 – June 12, 1983) was an American blues musician, born Joseph Benjamin Hutto.Hutto was influenced by Elmore James, and became known for his slide guitar work and declamatory style of singing.
He was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame two years after his death.



Jesse Fuller

Jesse Fuller (March 12, 1896 — January 29, 1976) was an American one-man band musician, best known for his song "San Francisco Bay Blues".
His nickname was "Lone Cat."

Blind Willie McTell

Blind Willie McTell (May 5, 1898 – August 19, 1959) was an influential American blues singer, songwriter,
and guitarist.He was a twelve-string finger picking Piedmont blues guitarist, and recorded 149 songs between 1927 and 1956.



Eric Clapton

Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE (born 30 March 1945) is an English blues-rock guitarist, singer, songwriter and
composer.
Clapton is the only person who has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame three times; as a solo performer, as well as a member of rock bands the Yardbirds and Cream. Often viewed by critics and fans alike as one of the most important and influential guitarists of all time, Clapton was ranked fourth in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" and #53 on their list of the "Immortals: 100 Greatest Artists of All Time".

In 2010, Clapton was ranked #4 on Gibson.com’s Top 50 Guitarists of All Time.

Although Clapton has varied his musical style throughout his career, it has always remained grounded in the blues; despite this focus, he is credited as an innovator in a wide variety of genres.
These include blues-rock (with John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers and The Yardbirds) and psychedelic rock (with Cream). Clapton's chart success was not limited to the blues, with chart-toppers in Delta Blues (Me and Mr. Johnson), Adult contemporary ("Tears in Heaven") and reggae (Bob Marley's "I Shot the Sheriff"; he is often credited for bringing reggae and Bob Marley to the mainstream).

Two of his most successful recordings were the hit love song "Layla", which he played with the band Derek
and the Dominos, and Robert Johnson's "Crossroads", which has been his staple song since his days with Cream.



Eddie Taylor

Eddie Taylor (January 29, 1923 – December 25, 1985) was an American blues guitarist and singer.
Born Edward Taylor in Benoit, Mississippi, as a boy Taylor taught himself to play the guitar. He spent his
early years playing at venues around Leland, Mississippi, where he taught his friend Jimmy Reed to play
guitar.
With a guitar style deeply rooted in the Mississippi Delta tradition, in 1949 Taylor moved to Chicago.
While Taylor never achieved the stardom of some of his compatriots in the Chicago Blues scene, he
nevertheless was an integral part of that era and is especially noted as a main accompanist for Jimmy Reed as well as working with John Lee Hooker, Big Walter Horton and others.
Taylor's own records "Big Town Playboy" and "Bad Boy" on Vee Jay Records became local hits in the 1950s.
Taylor's son Eddie Taylor Jr. is a blues guitarist in Chicago, and his stepson Larry Taylor is a blues drummer and vocalist. Taylor's wife Vera was the niece of bluesmen Eddie "Guitar" Burns and Jimmy Burns.
Taylor died on Christmas Day in 1985 in Chicago, at age 62, and was interred in the Restvale Cemetery in
Alsip, Illinois. He was posthumously inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1987.



Peetie Wheatstraw

Peetie Wheatstraw (December 21, 1902 – December 21, 1941) was the name adopted by the singer William Bunch, an influential figure among 1930s blues singers.
Although the only known photograph of Bunch shows him holding a National brand tricone resonator guitar, he played the piano on most of his recordings.
Wheatstraw's influence was enormous during the 1930s. Perhaps the most obvious example of Wheatstraw'simpact can be seen in the lyrics and vocal stylings of Robert Johnson, often considered the most important blues figure of the era.
Many of Johnson's own recordings were actually re-workings of other popular artists of the time, and he drew heavily from Wheatstraw's repertoire. For example, Wheatstraw's "Police station blues" forms the basis for Johnson's "Hellhound on my trail". His "Devil's son in law" nick name also reflected Johnson's similar image.
Wheatstraw, along with Leroy Carr, was one of the earliest blues singer piano players. Many elements of his style can be seen in later artists like Champion Jack Dupree, Moon Mullican and Jerry Lee Lewis.
Wheatstraw also made many recordings with the very influential Kokomo Arnold, who wrote the blues standard "Milk cow blues".



Wynonie Harris

Wynonie Harris (August 24, 1915 – June 14, 1969), born in Omaha, Nebraska, was an American blues shouter and rhythm and blues singer of upbeat songs featuring humorous, often ribald lyrics.
With fifteen Top 10 hits between 1946 and 1952, Harris is generally considered one of rock and roll's
forerunners, influencing Elvis Presley among others.
He was the subject of a 1994 biography by Tony Collins.



Meade Lux Lewis

Meade Lux Lewis (September 1905 – June 7, 1964) was a United States pianist and composer, noted for his work in the boogie-woogie style.
His best known work, "Honky Tonk Train Blues", has been recorded in various contexts, often in a big band
arrangement. Early recordings of the piece by artists other than Lewis include performances by Adrian
Rollini, Frankie Trumbauer, classical harpsichordist Sylvia Marlowe, theater organist George Wright (with
drummer Cozy Cole, under the title "Organ Boogie"), and Bob Zurke with Bob Crosby's orchestra.Keith Emersonof Emerson, Lake & Palmer often included it in his program.



Jimmy Rushing

James Andrew Rushing (August 26, 1901 - June 8, 1972) known as Jimmy Rushing, was an American blues shouter and swing jazz singer from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, best known as the featured vocalist of Count Basie's Orchestra from 1935 to 1948.
Rushing was known as "Mr. Five by Five" and was the subject of an eponymous 1942 popular song that was a hit for Harry James and others. He joined Walter Page's Blue Devils in 1927, then joined Bennie Moten's band in 1929.
He stayed with the successor Count Basie band when Moten died in 1935.



Taj Mahal

Henry Saint Clair Fredericks (born May 17, 1942), who uses the stage name Taj Mahal, is an internationally
recognized blues musician with two Grammy Awards to date who folds various forms of world music into his offerings.
A self-taught singer-songwriter and film composer who plays the guitar, banjo and harmonica (among many other instruments), Mahal has done much to reshape the definition and scope of blues music over the course of his almost 50 year career by fusing it with nontraditional forms, including sounds from the Caribbean, Africa and the South Pacific.



Koko Taylor

Koko Taylor sometimes spelled KoKo Taylor (September 28, 1928 – June 3, 2009) was an American blues
musician, popularly known as the "Queen of the Blues."
She was known primarily for her rough, powerful vocals and traditional blues stylings.



Charles Musselwhite

Charlie Musselwhite (born January 31, 1944 in Kosciusko, Mississippi) is an American blues-harp player and bandleader, one of the non-black bluesmen who came to prominence in the early 1960s, along with Mike Bloomfield and Paul Butterfield.
Though he has often been identified as a "white bluesman", he claims Native American heritage.
Musselwhite was reportedly the inspiration for Dan Aykroyd's Blues Brothers.

Luther Allison

Luther Allison (August 17, 1939 – August 12, 1997) was an American blues guitarist.
He was born in Widener, Arkansas and moved with his family, at age twelve, to Chicago, Illinois in 1951.
He had taught himself guitar while in Chicago and began listening to blues extensively. Three years later he began hanging outside blues nightclubs with the hopes of being invited to perform. He played with Howlin'
Wolf's band and backed up James Cotton.

Honeyboy Edwards

David "Honeyboy" Edwards (born June 28, 1915) is a Delta blues guitarist and singer from the American South.

As of December 2009, Honeyboy Edwards, at age 94, and his close friend Pinetop Perkins (age 96) are the

oldest Delta blues players still touring the United States.
Edwards received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award on January 31, 2010.

Ruth Brown

Ruth Brown (January 30, 1928 – November 17, 2006) was an American pop-R&B singer, songwriter, record producer, composer and actress noted for bringing a popular music style to rhythm and blues in a series of hit songs for fledgling Atlantic Records in the 1950s, such as "So Long", "Teardrops from My Eyes" and
"(Mama) He Treats Your Daughter Mean". For these contributions, Atlantic became known as "The house that Ruth built".
Following a resurgence that began in the mid-1970s and peaked in the eighties, Brown used her influence to press for musicians' rights regarding royalties and contracts, which led to the founding of the Rhythm and Blues Foundation.
Her performances in the Broadway musical Black and Blue earned Brown a Tony Award, and the original
soundtrack won a Grammy Award.



Barbecue Bob

Robert Hicks, better known as Barbecue Bob (September 11, 1902 – October 21, 1931) was an early American country blues musician.
His nickname came from the fact that he was a cook in a barbecue restaurant. One of the two extant
photographs of Bob show him playing his guitar while wearing a full length white apron and cook's hat.

Johnny Ace

Johnny Ace (June 9, 1929 – December 25, 1954), born John Marshall Alexander, Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee, was one of the stars of American rhythm and blues singing.
After serving in the navy during the Korean War, Alexander joined Adolph Duncan's Band as a pianist. He then joined the B. B. King band. Soon King departed for Los Angeles and Bobby Bland joined the army. Alexander took over vocal duties and renamed the band The Beale Streeters, also taking over King's WDIA radio show.
Becoming "Johnny Ace", he signed to Duke Records (originally a Memphis label associated with WDIA) in 1952.
Urbane 'heart-ballad' "My Song," his first recording, topped the R&B charts for nine weeks in September.
("My Song" was covered in 1968 by Aretha Franklin, on the flipside of "See Saw".)
Ace began heavy touring, often with Willa Mae "Big Mama" Thornton. In the next two years, he had eight hits
in a row, including "Cross My Heart," "Please Forgive Me," "The Clock," "Yes, Baby," "Saving My Heart for
You," and "Never Let Me Go."
In December, 1954 he was named the Most Programmed Artist Of 1954 after a national DJ poll organized by U.S. trade weekly Cash Box.
Ace's recordings sold very well for those times. Early in 1955, Duke Records announced that the three 1954. Johnny Ace recordings, along with Thornton's "Hound Dog", had sold more than 1,750,000 records.

James Cotton

James Cotton (born July 1, 1935, Tunica, Mississippi, is an American blues harmonica player, singer, and
songwriter who is the bandleader for the James Cotton Blues Band.
He also writes songs alone, and his solo career continues to this day.

His work includes the following
genres: blues, delta blues, harmonica blues, and electric harmonica blues.