Episodes
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The Blues Foundation Podcast - Season 1: Blues Hall of Fame Dinah Washington was the most popular black, female, recording artist of the 50’s. During the peak of her career, it seemed like everything she touched turned to gold. Obviously, she had made a lot of fans. She also counted the other musical stars of the day as ardent devotees. Her talent, charisma, and hit-making ability were undeniable, and everyone wanted to record with her. But the critics weren’t always so nice. See, Dinah was a blues singer, they felt. And they wanted her to stay a blues singer.But Dinah Washington was so good, she could sing anything she wanted. She was a phenomenal jazz and pop singer. Dinah even had a hit singing a cover of Hank William’s Country and Western standard, "Cold Cold Heart." And the critics just didn’t like that. They often accused her of selling out the art of the blues to generate hits on the charts.But it wasn’t the critics that did Dinah Washington in. They never could get to her. It was the lifestyle. Her 7, tumultuous marriages; alcohol abuse; the constant battle to stay thin, so that she’d look good on stage. In 1963, at the tragically young age of 39 years old, Dinah Washington accidentally overdosed on diet pills.During her lifetime she received a Grammy Award for Best R & B Performance. She has three recordings in the Grammy Hall of Fame. Dinah was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993 and the Blues Hall of Fame in 2003.This is her story.
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The Blues Foundation Podcast - Season 1: Blues Hall of Fame Booker T Washington White, aka Bukka White, was many things. Like most African Americans born into the oppressive, Jim Crow era in the Mississippi Delta, he grew up sharecropping and picking cotton for plantation owners. He also drove mule teams. Bukka was a wandering Delta nomad, a professional boxer, a preacher, he played professional baseball in the Negro Leagues, and he even spent time working on a chain-gang. But he’s best known for playing the blues.His first instrument was the fiddle. He’d play for community dances on the plantation. History tells us that while performing at the Dockery Plantation, Bukka met Charlie Patton, Father of The Delta Blues, who became his friend and mentor. He soon graduated to guitar, mastered the bottleneck, and developed a completely unique sound of his own.Before long, he was touring the south and recording as “Washington White, The Singing Preacher.” Some of these early sides feature Memphis Minnie singing with Bukka. Bukka relocated to Memphis and in the early 40’s invited his nephew, Riley B King to come up from Itta Benna, MS to live with him. Riley, of course, became BB King, King of the Blues.In the early 60’s, white, folk artist Bob Dylan recorded White’s song, “Fixin’ To Die Blues” for his debut album and it introduced him to a global audience. Bukka became a major part of the 60’s blues revival, performing to audiences around the world.This is his story.Bukka White inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1990.
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The Blues Foundation Podcast - Season 1: Blues Hall of Fame We continue the series with Bessie Smith, the Empress of The Blues. Bessie Smith wasn’t born into royalty. She had to work her way up. But she had the talent, and she most certainly had the determination to overcome her humble origins.At 9 years of age, Bessie was orphaned and earning money for food by singing with her older brother on street corners in Chattanooga, TN. He ran away to pursue a better life with a vaudeville troupe, but he eventually returned to get her when she was 18. Bessie auditioned to be a singer but was assigned the role of a dancer because the troupe already had a star vocalist: blues legend Ma Rainey.But it worked out very well for Bessie. Ma liked her and she helped Bessie get her act together. She showed Bessie how to work crowds and put on a show. After embarking on her own, Bessie Smith became the biggest star on the black theater circuit, and she grew to become one of the biggest stars in the world. Some even say that her ventures into other mediums such as Broadway and film, coupled with her controversial romances and tumultuous private life, became the blueprint for the modern rockstar. Bessie has 3 songs in the Grammy Hall of Fame. "Down Hearted Blues" is included in the Songs of The Century by the Recording Industry of America and was inducted in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as one of the 500 songs that shaped Rock and Roll.Bessie Smith was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980. Since then, she has been inducted into the Big Band Hall of Fame, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, received a posthumous Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and has also been inducted into the Jazz Hall of Fame.This is her story.
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The Blues Foundation Podcast - Season 1: Blues Hall of Fame Charley Patton was the very first bluesman to record and popularize the blues. Born in 1891 in Bolton, MS (in the southern part of the state), Charley and his family relocated to Dockery Farms around 1900, looking for opportunity and a better way of life. The towns in the northern delta were less established and in need of labor - as a result, black workers were treated better on the northern plantations than those in the southern, more established part of the state.At Dockery, his family worked hard and achieved success - his father was named foreman of the plantation. But farm work was never much in the plan for Charley Patton - he was born to entertain. While he lived on or around Dockery his entire life, he never bought in to the farming lifestyle. But he did play the blues far and wide. He became the first in-demand blues artist. He was a regional superstar. A celebrity. His recorded works became hit records found on phonographs throughout the Delta.Charlye recorded 57 songs between 1929 and 1934, which left a legacy that has impacted musicians from Led Zepplin to Bob Dylan to the White Stripes. His most famous songs include Pony Blues, Spoonful Blues, and High Water Everywhere. Unfortunately, like many bluesmen, Patton’s life was short - he died in 1934 at age 43. We can only guess what we would have accomplished in his life. He was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980.This is his story. Charley Patton inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980.
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The Blues Foundation Podcast - Season 1: Blues Hall of Fame If Bessie Smith is the acknowledged “Queen of the Blues,” then Gertrude “Ma” Rainey is the undisputed “Mother of the Blues.” Or, as one historian famously said, “If there was another woman who sang the blues before Rainey, nobody remembered hearing her.”Ma Rainey was born Gertrude Pridgett in 1886 in Columbus, Georgia. She made her performing debut at the age of 14 in a local theatre show. In her late teens, she married and soon found herself touring with the Rabbit Foot Minstrels. She quickly became a star and the troupe began featuring Rainey singing blues music. Those performances would precede the blues boom by almost two decades and would make Rainey the first woman to incorporate blues into vaudeville, minstrel and tent shows.In 1923 Rainey signed with Paramount Records. Paramount marketed her extensively, calling her the “Mother of the Blues".When the blues faded from popularity in the Thirties, the earthy Ma Rainey returned to her Georgia hometown, where she ran two theaters. Ma Rainey died from a from a heart attack on December 22, 1939.Ma Rainey was inducted into the Blue Foundation’s Hall of Fame in 1990, the same year she was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. In 2004 “See, See Rider” was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.This is her story. Ma Rainey inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1983.
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The Blues Foundation Podcast - Season 1: Blues Hall of Fame Born into in rural, Baptist, Mississippi in 1902, Son House felt called to be a preacher at the young age of 15. But it just wasn't meant to be. As he matured into adulthood, he developed an affinity for alcohol. It proved to be a strange mix of ideals.The one evening, while drinking and gambling with friends, House tried his hand at singing the blues. The die was cast. The preacher’s booming voice filled the room, the bottleneck guitar answered, and a bluesman was born.Son House became the touring partner of Willie Brown and Charlie Patton, the father of the Delta Blues. The three played all over the Mississippi Delta and influenced countless musicians, including a young Robert Johnson.Son House became one of the most important figures of the folk revival in the 60’s. As one of the last living links to Patton and Johnson, he found himself surrounded by admirers and in demand around the world on the festival and coffeehouse circuit. To an entire generation of blues lovers, Son House was the blues.This is his story. Son House inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980.
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The Blues Foundation Podcast - Season 1: Blues Hall of Fame Honeyboy Edwards was Last of the Great Mississippi Delta Bluesmen.Born to a poor, but very musical family, his early life consisted of hard labor in the fields. His prodigious talents soon took him away from all that, and his life became a journey through the pages of blues history.Edwards was Robert Johnson’s close friend and traveling companion. In fact, he was with Johnson the night he was poisoned and died in 1938.Honeyboy Edwards called many of the first generation of bluesmen both friends and collaborators. He played with Charlie Patton, Tommie Johnson, and Johnny Shines. He later played guitar behind John Lee Hooker, Big Joe Williams, and Muddy Waters.Edwards believed in the blues and he believed in doing things without all the flash. He was humble, understated, and consistently great at working alongside the superstars of the delta blues for 8, long decades.This is his story. David “Honeyboy” Edwards inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1996.
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The Blues Foundation Podcast - Season 1: Blues Hall of Fame Ray Charles, blind since the age of 7 and orphaned at 14, did blues, jazz, and gospel as well as anyone before or since.And, by doing them all together at once, he pioneered what we soon came to recognize as Soul.That’s right. Ray Charles is the father of that whole genre.Furthermore, he took these forms of Black American music, mingled them just enough with contemporary pop sounds and had massive crossover success. Ray Charles was one of the very first African American artists to be granted full, creative control of his career by a major record label.Ray Charles had a nickname. Some say it was given to him by Sinatra himself. However he got it, it stuck, and people referred to him as "The Genius."Pretty appropriate, don’t you think?This is his story.Ray Charles inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1982.
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The Blues Foundation Podcast - Season 1: Blues Hall of Fame Fats Domino was born into a musical, French Creole family in the Lower 9th in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1928. His first language was Creole French.
His talents blossomed early. His musical gifts, along with his laid back and easygoing demeanor, created a lot of demand - everybody wanted to work with Fats.
He had his first hit by the time he was 21, and he invented New Orleans-style rock n roll with it. That 1949 hit for Imperial Records - "The Fat Man" - sold over a million copies by 1953 and is considered the first rock n roll record to achieve that feat. A succession of hits soon followed: "Ain’t that a Shame", "Blueberry Hill", and "I’m Walkin’".
By the end of his career, Fats Domino had sold more records than any other 1950’s rocker except for Elvis Presley. Fats Domino inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 2003.
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The Blues Foundation Podcast - Season 1: Blues Hall of FameGatemouth Brown once said of Don Robey, “He pulled off something in America that no one else ever pulled off. We had the only world-renowned black recording company.”That “recording company” included the legendary Peacock and Duke record labels, boasting stars like Johnny Ace, Bobby Blue Bland, Little Richard, and Big Mama Thornton. It also included chains of retail record stores, pressing plants, print shops, a booking agency, and a circuit of nightclubs. It was a giant musical eco-system all under Don Robey's ruthless thumb.Don Robey launched the careers of countless stars and shaped the business side of rhythm and blues music for generations.This is his story. Don Robey inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 2014.
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The Blues Foundation Podcast - Season 1: Blues Hall of Fame We continue the series with the “world’s oldest teenager,” Rufus Thomas.
Rufus Thomas contained multitudes, as they say. His talents and the personality behind those talents knew no bounds.
Rufus’ professional career began at the age of six taking small roles in theatrical productions on Beale Street. As a teenager he starred on the vaudeville and minstrel show circuits that crisscrossed the south. He was a singer, a dancer, a comedian, a radio DJ… and what’s truly incredible is that he excelled at all those things.
From Beale Street to Sun Records to superstardom at Stax. Vaudeville, blues, rock n roll, soul. Even funk! Rufus did it all. Rufus Thomas inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 2001.
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The Blues Foundation Podcast - Season 1: Blues Hall of Fame We continue our series with one of the most electrifying individuals in the history of popular music, maverick producer Sam Phillips.Sam was an audio engineer, a talent scout, a producer, a studio owner, and a record label owner. He approached all these endeavors with unbridled enthusiasm, an unparalleled sense of showmanship, and keen understanding of the levers of human psychology.His "laboratory" (aka Memphis Recording Service) delivered groundbreaking efforts from B.B. King, Bobby Blue Bland, Rufus Thomas, Junior Parker, James Cotton, and countless others.In fact, Sam Phillips' legacy was established long before Elvis walked through his front door.This is his story. Sam Phillips inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1998.
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The Blues Foundation Podcast - Season 1: Blues Hall of Fame Is there a bluesman more iconic than John Lee Hooker?
His face, his eyes, his austere silhouette on stage, that deep southern drawl, that one-chord boogie... everything about the man was distinct and original.
Where did it all come from? Like many bluesmen of his generation, he grew up in the country and didn’t have much use for school. He much preferred skipping class and practicing guitar. Yet John Lee wrote some of the most original and most influential blues songs of all time: “Boogie Chillun”, “Boom Boom”, “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer”. And he crafted a completely unique sound along the way that continues to influence musicians to this day.
This is his story. John Lee Hooker inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980.
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The Blues Foundation Podcast - Season 1: Blues Hall of Fame Roy Brown may be best known for writing the iconic, genre-warping song "Good Rockin’ Tonight."Brown had a hit with it, then it was re-recorded by his hero Wynonie Harris, who also had a hit with it. Just a few years after that, further cementing the songs rightful place in music history, Elvis Presley recorded the song for Sun Records.But there was more to Brown than Good Rockin'. You know that powerful, quivering, pleading, shouting manner in which most of today’s great singers sing? We take it for granted these days, but it wasn’t always like that.That style of singing comes from the African American church. And when Roy Brown first brought that feel and phrasing to blues music, it was a social and cultural taboo. That’s right, all that good rockin’ and all that soulful shouting that took over popular music can be traced back to the blues of Roy Brown.This is his story. Roy Brown inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1981.
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The Blues Foundation Podcast - Season 1: Blues Hall of Fame We continue the series with the man who brought electricity to the blues, and the blues to the big city, Muddy Waters.
Born McKinley Morganfield in 1913 in Issaquenna, MS, he grew up on the Stovall Plantation just outside of Clarksdale. There, young Muddy fell under the influence and tutelage of the travelling bluesmen that came to perform there. Bluesmen like the great Son House and the king of the delta blues himself, Robert Johnson.
Muddy moved to Chicago in 1943, taking with him his acoustic guitar and repertoire of delta blues songs and riffs. Feeling ignored by the crowds in the busy Chicago clubs, he traded in his acoustic for an electric guitar and the rest was history. Muddy Waters inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980.
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The Blues Foundation Podcast - Season 1: Blues Hall of Fame No one had more fun than Louis Jordan. You can hear it in his music. As “King of the Jukebox”, his high energy, hip-shaking “jump blues” enjoyed the kind of crossover success people once considered unimaginable. In his heyday, Jordan had at least 4 hits that sold over a million copies.Just a poor kid from the cotton fields of Brinkley, Arkansas, Jordan developed a highly efficient approach to music. He stripped the 15-piece jazz orchestra down to five essential instruments, and kept those five instruments busy. He laced swing with boogie-woogie, brought in the electric guitar (and later the electric organ), and at the end of the day, what do you think he ended up with?That’s right…. Louis Jordan gave us rock n roll.This is his story.Louis Jordan inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1983.
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The Blues Foundation Podcast - Season 1: Blues Hall of FameIt's hard to believe that Skip James almost drifted into obscurity.
Like most enshrined in the Blues Hall of Fame, he was an absolute original. A genuine musical innovator.
These days Skip James is considered by many to be the greatest of the delta blues singers. His songwriting, vocal stylings, and otherworldy ability on the guitar and piano influenced everyone, including a young Robert Johnson.
But back in the 1930's, when he was cutting records for Paramount, he didn't look like he had much of a future ahead of him. The Great Depression wiped out his record label, so James gave it all up and went dormant for decades.
But re-discovered by music lovers in the 60's folk revival, James 2nd act proved more powerful than his first.
This is his story.Skip James inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1992.
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Little Richard has been awarded every honor an artist could want. He may be enshrined in every hall of fame across the globe. And he may have invented rock n' roll, but blues was where his amazing journey began.
One of the greatest, most original, and most influential artists that has ever lived, Little Richard has been special from day one, and in this episode you'll hear all about it. There can only be one Little Richard, and formative events of his life were just as unique.This is his story.Little Richard inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 2015.
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The Blues Foundation Podcast - Season 1: Blues Hall of Fame There aren't too many stories in the blues lexicon like Memphis Minnie's.
At age 13 she ran away from home to fend for herself on Memphis' Beale Street. Fortunately for, she had prodigious musical talents far beyond her years and quickly adjusted to life as a street performer. Memphis Minnie was soon called upon to spread the blues far and wide as a performer in the Ringling Bros. "Greatest Show on Earth."
She returned home in 1920 to a booming Beale Street and a thriving music industry built around blues music. She naturally became one of its brightest stars. Memphis Minnie inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980.
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The Blues Foundation Podcast - Season 1: Blues Hall of Fame This week we learn about the "Father of The Blues," W.C. Handy.
Handy once said that he found his inspiration as a composer in the "sounds of the world around him" - nature, church, and the bustling city. His exquisitely trained ear and phonographic memory allowed him to recall and transcribe everything he encountered. This ability paid off handsomely when Handy began translating the feel, scales, and phrasing of African American folk music into big band arrangements.
In 1909 infamous Memphis politician Boss Crump hired Handy to write a catchy song for his campaign. Sitting at Pee Wee's Saloon on Beale Street, Handy wrote the song "Mr. Crump" later changing the name and publishing the song as "Memphis Blues," ushering in a new era for popular music. It also launched Handy's music publishing empire - positioning Handy as a crucial player in the formative era of the modern music industry.This is his story.W.C. Handy inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 2010.
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