Pre-1940 blues
Blues musicians are musical artists who are primarily recognized as writing, performing, and recording blues music. [1] They come from different eras and include styles such as ragtime-vaudeville, Delta and country blues, and urban styles from Chicago and the West Coast. [2] In the last several decades, blues music has developed a less regional character and has been influenced by rhythm and blues, rock, and other popular music. [3]
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John Lee Hooker was an American blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist. The son of a sharecropper, he rose to prominence performing an electric guitar-style adaptation of Delta blues that he developed in Detroit. Hooker often incorporated other elements, including talking blues and early North Mississippi hill country blues. He developed his own driving-rhythm boogie style, distinct from the 1930s–1940s piano-derived boogie-woogie. Hooker was ranked 35 in Rolling Stone's 2015 list of 100 greatest guitarists, and has been cited as one of the greatest male blues vocalists of all time.
Electric blues is blues music distinguished by the use of electric amplification for musical instruments. The guitar was the first instrument to be popularly amplified and used by early pioneers T-Bone Walker in the late 1930s and John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters in the 1940s. Their styles developed into West Coast blues, Detroit blues, and post-World War II Chicago blues, which differed from earlier, predominantly acoustic-style blues. By the early 1950s, Little Walter was a featured soloist on blues harmonica using a small hand-held microphone fed into a guitar amplifier. Although it took a little longer, the electric bass guitar gradually replaced the stand-up bass by the early 1960s. Electric organs and especially keyboards later became widely used in electric blues.
Lil Green was an American classic female blues singer and songwriter. She was among the leading female rhythm and blues singers of the 1940s, with a sensual soprano voice. Gospel singer R.H. Harris lauded her voice, and her interpretation of religious songs.
Junior Wells was an American singer, harmonica player, and recording artist. He is best known for his signature song "Messin' with the Kid" and his 1965 album Hoodoo Man Blues, described by the critic Bill Dahl as "one of the truly classic blues albums of the 1960s". Wells himself categorized his music as rhythm and blues.
Byther Claude Earl John Smith was an American blues musician who worked with Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Jimmy Reed, Otis Rush and Junior Wells.
Fenton Lee Robinson was an American blues singer and exponent of the Chicago blues guitar. In 2023, he was inducted in the Blues Hall of Fame.
"Worried Life Blues" is a blues standard and one of the most recorded blues songs of all time. Originally recorded by Big Maceo Merriweather in 1941, "Worried Life Blues" was an early blues hit and Maceo's most recognized song. An earlier song inspired it and several artists have had record chart successes with their interpretations of the song.
John Leroy "Johnny" Heartsman was an American electric blues and soul blues musician and songwriter. He showed musical diversity, playing a number of musical instruments, including the electronic organ and flute. He contributed his distinctive guitar playing to a number of recordings made in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1950s and 1960s. He continued playing until his death.
Earring George Mayweather was an American electric blues and Chicago blues harmonica player, songwriter and singer. He recorded only one solo album, but he played the harmonica on recordings by J. B. Hutto and Eddie Taylor.
Citations
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