Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated amongst African-Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the African-American culture. The blues form is ubiquitous in jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock and roll, and 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.
The Blues Brothers are an American blues and soul revue band founded in 1978 by comedians Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi, who met and began collaborating as original cast members of Saturday Night Live.
Wayne Talmadge Bennett was an American blues guitarist, best remembered for his performances and recordings with Bobby Bland between the 1950s and 1980s.
Oren Bloedow is an American singer, guitarist and bassist. He founded the band Elysian Fields in 1995 with Jennifer Charles. His father, Jerry Bloedow, was a playwright, poet, and film editor whose theater, the Hardware Poet's Playhouse, participated in the New York avant-garde scene in the 1950s and 1960s.
Luther Sylvester Allison was an American blues singer-songwriter and guitarist. He was born in Widener, Arkansas, although some accounts suggest his actual place of birth was Mayflower, Arkansas. Allison was interested in music as a child and during the late 1940s he toured in a family gospel group called The Southern Travellers. He moved with his family to Chicago in 1951 and attended Farragut High School where he was classmates with Muddy Waters' son. He taught himself guitar and began listening to blues extensively. Three years later he dropped out of school and began hanging around outside blues nightclubs with the hopes of being invited to perform. Allison played with the bands of Howlin' Wolf and Freddie King, taking over King's band when King toured nationally. He worked with Jimmy Dawkins, Magic Sam and Otis Rush, and also backed James Cotton. Chicago Reader has called him "the Jimi Hendrix of blues guitar".
Samuel Gene Maghett, known as Magic Sam, was an American Chicago blues musician. He was born in Grenada County, 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 19, he was signed by Cobra Records and became well known as a bluesman after the release of his first record, "All Your Love", in 1957. He was known for his distinctive tremolo guitar playing.
Louis Joseph Walker Jr., known as Joe Louis Walker, is an American musician, best known as an electric blues guitarist, singer, songwriter and producer. His knowledge of blues history is revealed by his use of older material and playing styles.
The Blues Brothers is a 1980 American musical action comedy film directed by John Landis. It stars John Belushi as "Joliet" Jake Blues and Dan Aykroyd as his brother Elwood, characters developed from the recurring musical sketch "The Blues Brothers" on NBC's variety series Saturday Night Live. The script is set in and around Chicago, Illinois, where it was filmed, and the screenplay is by Aykroyd and Landis. It features musical numbers by singers James Brown, Cab Calloway, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles and John Lee Hooker. It features non-musical supporting performances by Carrie Fisher and Henry Gibson.
The Prime Movers were an American blues band based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States, which was formed in 1965. The band originally consisted of Michael Erlewine, Dan Erlewine, Robert Sheff (keyboards), Robert Vinopal (bass), and Michael "Spider" Wynn (drums). Vinopal left soon after the band's formation and was replaced by Jack Dawson. Wynn left a short time later and was replaced by James Osterberg, who would later become famous as Iggy Pop. When he joined the Prime Movers Osterberg took the name "Iggy", from his previous band The Iguanas.
Joseph Bowie is an American jazz trombonist and vocalist. The brother of trumpeter Lester Bowie, Joseph is known for leading the jazz-punk group Defunkt and for membership in the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble.
Alto Reed was an American saxophonist best known as a long-time member of Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band He was a 1966 graduate of Lake Shore High School in St. Clair Shores, Michigan
Richard Salwitz, known as Magic Dick, is an American musician, noted for playing the harmonica for the J. Geils Band. In addition to the harmonica, Salwitz plays the trumpet and saxophone.
Luther Tucker was an American blues guitarist.
Lafayette Leake was an American blues and jazz pianist, organist, vocalist and composer who played for Chess Records as a session musician, and as a member of the Big Three Trio, during the formative years of Chicago blues. He played piano on many of Chuck Berry's recordings.
Andreas "Andy" Egert is a Swiss blues guitarist, harmonica player and singer.
Vasti Jackson is an American electric blues guitarist, singer, songwriter and record producer. He has also been the musical director, and guitarist for Z. Z. Hill, Johnnie Taylor, Denise LaSalle, Little Milton, Bobby Bland, and Katie Webster, plus Jackson has worked with those involved in gospel music including the Williams Brothers, the Jackson Southernaires, and Daryl Coley.
Cool John Ferguson is an American blues guitarist, singer and songwriter. He has released five albums under his own name and played on around twenty others. He is the Director of Creative Development for the Music Maker Relief Foundation, and plays his guitar "upside down".
Ardie Dean is an American electric blues drummer, audio engineer and record producer. In a varied career over fifty years, Dean has worked with the Giddens Sisters, Alabama Slim, Homesick James, Little Freddie King, Lee Gates, Ernie K-Doe, Bo Diddley, Gregg Allman, Sweet Betty, Guitar Gabriel, Adolphus Bell, Jerry McCain, Macavine Hayes, Beverly Watkins, Lightnin' Wells, Taj Mahal, Cootie Stark, Sam Frazier Jr., Ironing Board Sam, Captain Luke, Cool John Ferguson, and Robert Lee Coleman, among others.
