Blues is a music genre and musical form which was originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s by African-Americans from roots in African-American work songs and spirituals. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads. The blues form, ubiquitous in jazz, rhythm and blues and rock and roll, is characterized by the call-and-response pattern, the blues scale and specific chord progressions, of which the twelve-bar blues is the most common. Blue notes, usually thirds, fifths or sevenths flattened in pitch are also an essential part of the sound. Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce the trance-like rhythm and form a repetitive effect known as the groove.
Lemon Henry "Blind Lemon" Jefferson was an American blues and gospel singer-songwriter and musician. He was one of the most popular blues singers of the 1920s and has been called the "Father of the Texas Blues".
Anson Funderburgh is an American blues guitar player and bandleader of Anson Funderburgh and the Rockets since 1978. Their style incorporates both Chicago blues and Texas blues.
Tommy Castro is an American blues, R&B, and rock guitarist and singer. He has been recording since the mid-1990s. His music has taken him from local stages to national and international touring. His popularity was marked by his winning the 2008 Blues Music Award for Entertainer of the Year.
Kim Wilson is an American blues singer and harmonica player. He is best known as the lead vocalist and frontman for the Fabulous Thunderbirds on two hit songs of the 1980s, "Tuff Enuff" and "Wrap It Up." Wilson also wrote "Tuff Enuff."
James Henry Cotton was an American blues harmonica player, singer and songwriter, who performed and recorded with many of the great blues artists of his time and with his own band. He played drums early in his career but is famous for his harmonica playing.
Charles Douglas Musselwhite is an American electric blues harmonica player and bandleader, one of the white bluesmen who came to prominence in the early 1960s, along with Mike Bloomfield and Paul Butterfield. He has often been identified as a "white bluesman". Musselwhite was reportedly the inspiration for Elwood Blues; the character played by Dan Aykroyd in the 1980 film, The Blues Brothers.
Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown was an American singer and multi-instrumentalist from Louisiana known for his work as a blues musician. He spent his career fighting purism by synthesizing traditional blues and country, jazz, Cajun music and R&B. His work also encompasses rock and roll, rock, folk and Texas blues. He was famously a resident of Texas.
"Eyesight to the Blind" is a 12-bar blues song written and recorded in 1951 by Sonny Boy Williamson II. He also recorded the related songs "Born Blind", "Unseeing Eye", "Don't Lose Your Eye", and "Unseen Eye" during his career. The Larks, an American rhythm and blues group, recorded the song, which reached number five on the R&B charts in 1951. Several musicians subsequently recorded it in a variety of styles. The Who used Williamson's lyrics for their adaptation for the rock opera Tommy.
The Long Beach Blues Festival, in Long Beach, California, United States, was established in full in 1980, and was one of the largest blues festivals and was the second oldest on the West Coast. It was held on Saturday and Sunday of Labor Day weekend. For many years it was held on the athletic field on the California State University, Long Beach campus. The 2009 festival, the 30th annual, was held at Rainbow Lagoon in downtown Long Beach. The Festival went on hiatus in 2010, and has not been held since.
Roomful of Blues is an American blues and swing revival big band based in Rhode Island. With a recording career that spans over 50 years, they have toured worldwide and recorded many albums. Roomful of Blues, according to the Chicago Sun-Times, "Swagger, sway and swing with energy and precision". Since 1967, the group’s blend of swing, rock and roll, jump blues, boogie-woogie and soul has earned it five Grammy Award nominations and many other accolades, including seven Blues Music Awards. Billboard called the band "a tour de force of horn-fried blues…Roomful is so tight and so right." The Down Beat International Critics Poll has twice selected Roomful of Blues as Best Blues Band.
Junior Watson is an American jump blues guitarist and singer.
Smokin' Joe Kubek was an American Texas blues electric guitarist, songwriter and performer.
Christian Dozzler is an Austrian blues, boogie woogie and zydeco multi-instrumentalist and singer, now based in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. He plays piano, harmonica, accordion and organ, and writes most of his recorded material. He has been nicknamed "Vienna Slim".
Robert Lee "Smokey" Wilson was an American West Coast blues guitarist. He spent most of his career performing West Coast blues and juke joint blues in Los Angeles, California. He recorded a number of albums for record labels such as P-Vine Records, Bullseye Blues and Texmuse Records. His career got off to a late start, with international recognition eluding him until the 1990s.
Susan Marshall is an American folk rock, pop and soul vocalist, pianist, songwriter and recording artist. She is best known for her work with Mother Station, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Lenny Kravitz, The Afghan Whigs, Primal Scream, North Mississippi Allstars, Lucinda Williams, Ana Popović and Katharine McPhee.
The Cash Box Kings is an American blues band from Chicago, Illinois, United States, specializing in Chicago-style blues from the 1940s and 1950s, as well as Delta blues style music from the 1920s and 1930s.
Kirk Fletcher is an American electric blues guitarist, singer, and songwriter. To date, Fletcher has released four studio albums and one live album. In addition, he has variously been a member of the Fabulous Thunderbirds and the Mannish Boys, plus supplied backing for Joe Bonamassa and Eros Ramazzotti. Fletcher has been nominated for four Blues Music Awards and was a 2015 British Blues Awards nominee.
