Ellas McDaniel, known professionally as Bo Diddley, was an American guitarist and singer who played a key role in the transition from the blues to rock and roll. He influenced many artists, including Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Animals, George Thorogood, and The Clash.
McKinley Morganfield, known professionally as Muddy Waters, was an American blues singer and musician who was an important figure in the post-war blues scene, and is often cited as the "father of modern Chicago blues". His style of playing has been described as "raining down Delta beatitude".
Ryland Peter "Ry" Cooder is an American musician, songwriter, film score composer, record producer, and writer. He is a multi-instrumentalist but is best known for his slide guitar work, his interest in traditional music, and his collaborations with traditional musicians from many countries.
Henry St. Claire Fredericks Jr., better known by his stage name Taj Mahal, is an American blues musician. He plays the guitar, piano, banjo, harmonica, and many other instruments, often incorporating elements of world music into his work. Mahal has done much to reshape the definition and scope of blues music over the course of his more than 50-year career by fusing it with nontraditional forms, including sounds from the Caribbean, Africa, India, Hawaii, and the South Pacific.
David Albert Alvin is an American singer-songwriter, guitarist and producer. He is a former and founding member of the roots rock band the Blasters. Alvin has recorded and performed as a solo artist since the late 1980s and has been involved in various side projects and collaborations. He has had brief stints as a member of the bands X and the Knitters.
Bruce Randall Hornsby is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. His music draws from folk rock, jazz, bluegrass, folk, Southern rock, country rock, jam band, rock, heartland rock, and blues rock musical traditions.
William Royce "Boz" Scaggs is an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist. He was an early bandmate of Steve Miller in The Ardells and the Steve Miller Band.
Merle Robert Travis was an American country and western singer, songwriter, and guitarist born in Rosewood, Kentucky, United States. His songs' lyrics often discussed both the lives and the economic exploitation of American coal miners. Among his many well-known songs and recordings are "Sixteen Tons", "Re-Enlistment Blues", "I am a Pilgrim" and "Dark as a Dungeon". However, it is his unique guitar style, still called "Travis picking" by guitarists, as well as his interpretations of the rich musical traditions of his native Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, for which he is best known today. Travis picking is a syncopated style of guitar fingerpicking rooted in ragtime music in which alternating chords and bass notes are plucked by the thumb while melodies are simultaneously plucked by the index finger. He was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970 and elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1977.
"Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" is a folk song written by Anne Bredon in the late 1950s. Joan Baez recorded a solo version for her 1962 album Joan Baez in Concert and a variety of musicians subsequently adapted it to a variety of styles, including Led Zeppelin. Several songwriters have been credited on releases over the years, although Bredon usually receives a sole or partial credit on current releases.
Charles Anthony Graci, known professionally as Charlie Gracie, was an American rock and roll and rhythm and blues singer and guitarist. His biggest hits were "Butterfly" and "Fabulous", both in 1957.
Alexander "Sandy" Bull was an American folk musician and composer. Bull was an accomplished player of many stringed instruments, including guitar, pedal steel guitar, banjo, and oud. His early work blends non-western instruments with 1960s folk revival, and has been cited as important in the development of psychedelic music.
Steven Bookvich known as Muruga Booker is an American drummer, composer, inventor, artist, recording artist, and an autonomous Eastern Orthodox priest.
Joshua Daniel White was an American singer, guitarist, songwriter, actor and civil rights activist. He also recorded under the names Pinewood Tom and Tippy Barton in the 1930s.
Guy Davis is an American blues guitarist, banjo player, and two-time Grammy Award nominee. He is the second child and the only son of the actors Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis.
"Cross Road Blues" is a blues song written and recorded by American blues artist Robert Johnson in 1936. Johnson performed it as a solo piece with his vocal and acoustic slide guitar in the Delta blues-style. The song has become part of the Robert Johnson mythology as referring to the place where he supposedly sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for his musical talents, although the lyrics do not contain any specific references.
"Killing Floor" is a 1964 song by American blues singer-songwriter and guitarist Howlin' Wolf. Called "one of the defining classics of Chicago electric blues", "Killing Floor" became a blues standard with recordings by various artists. It has been acknowledged by the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame, which noted its popularity among rock as well as blues musicians. English rock group Led Zeppelin adapted the song for their "The Lemon Song", for which Howlin' Wolf is named as a co-author.
"Train Kept A-Rollin'" is a song first recorded by American jazz and rhythm and blues musician Tiny Bradshaw in 1951. Originally performed in the style of a jump blues, Bradshaw borrowed lyrics from an earlier song and set them to an upbeat shuffle arrangement that inspired other musicians to perform and record it. Johnny Burnette and the Rock and Roll Trio made an important contribution in 1956 – they reworked it as a guitar riff-driven song, which features an early use of intentionally distorted guitar in rock music.
"Johnny 99" is a song written and recorded by rock musician Bruce Springsteen, which first appeared on Springsteen's 1982 solo album Nebraska.
Gary Lee Clark Jr. is an American blues guitarist and singer from Austin, Texas who fuses blues, rock and soul music with elements of hip hop. In 2011, Clark signed with Warner Bros Records and released The Bright Lights EP. It was followed by the albums Blak and Blu (2012) and The Story of Sonny Boy Slim (2015). Throughout his career, Clark has been a prolific live performer, documented by Gary Clark Jr. Live (2014) and Gary Clark Jr Live/North America (2017). He has shared the stage with Eric Clapton, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, B.B. King and the Rolling Stones.
Michael Cooper is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Initially coming to attention as a country blues performer, his later work also straddles jazz, Polynesian, ambient, and various experimental and improvisational styles.
