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.
West Coast blues is a type of blues music influenced by jazz and jump blues, with strong piano-dominated sounds and jazzy guitar solos, which originated from Texas blues players who relocated to California in the 1940s. West Coast blues also features smooth, honey-toned vocals, frequently crossing into rhythm and blues territory.
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.
Albert Clifton Ammons was an American pianist and player of boogie-woogie, a blues style popular from the late 1930s to the mid-1940s.
Burr Oak Cemetery is a cemetery located in Alsip, Illinois, United States, a suburb southwest of Chicago, Illinois. Established in 1927, Burr Oak was one of the few early Chicago cemeteries focused on the needs of the African-American community, it is the final resting place of many black celebrities, including Chicago blues musicians, athletes, and other notables.
George Washington Thomas Jr. was an American blues and jazz pianist and songwriter. He wrote several influential early boogie-woogie piano pieces including "The New Orleans Hop Scop Blues", "The Fives", and "The Rocks", which some believe he may have recorded himself under the name Clay Custer.
Joe Willie "Pinetop" Perkins was an American blues pianist. He played with some of the most influential blues and rock-and-roll performers of his time and received numerous honors, including a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and induction into the Blues Hall of Fame.
Wilbur Joe "Kansas Joe" McCoy was an American Delta blues singer, musician and songwriter.
"Boogie Chillen'" or "Boogie Chillun" is a blues song first recorded by John Lee Hooker in 1948. It is a solo performance featuring Hooker's vocal, electric guitar, and rhythmic foot stomps. The lyrics are partly autobiographical and alternate between spoken and sung verses. The song was his debut record release and in 1949, it became the first "down-home" electric blues song to reach number one in the R&B records chart.
Lincoln Cemetery is a historically African American cemetery in Blue Island, Illinois, United States. The cemetery is about 112 acres (45 ha) with over 16,000 interments.
William McKinley "Jazz" Gillum was an American blues harmonica player.
Luther Tucker was an American blues guitarist.
Boogie Woogie Red was an American Detroit blues, boogie-woogie and jazz pianist, singer and songwriter. At different times he worked with Sonny Boy Williamson I, Washboard Willie, Baby Boy Warren, Lonnie Johnson, Tampa Red, John Lee Hooker and Memphis Slim.
