This Week In The Blues: May 5 - May 11, 2024

HEY BLUES FANS - Here's the latest episode of "This Week In The Blues" for the week of May 5 - May 11, 2024.

Some of the highlights include Piedmont blues singer and guitarist Blind Willie McTell, delta guitar legend Robert Johnson, blues guitarist Kansas Joe McCoy, and blues rock guitarist Joe Bonnamassa. 

We just covered some of the highlights here. If you want to know more about these artists or other things that happened this week in the blues, be sure to visit our website or follow our Facebook page:
https://bigtrainblues.com
https://www.facebook.com/BigTrainBlues

Photo credits (if known) and past episodes are posted on our YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/@BigTrainBlues

Here are links to a few of the artists or songs we've referenced in this week's episode:

Blind Willie McTell - "Statesboro Blues" - https://youtu.be/fnWxZtI3ONY?si=lIMJSo9Vv5bPtuKO

Robert Johnson - "Crossroad" - https://youtu.be/Yd60nI4sa9A?si=AanmDDvZcy3NafNv

Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie - "When the Levee Breaks" - https://youtu.be/4eRvD3x1RIs?si=OAae7iHkUznbKRAo

Joe Bonamassa Official - "Going Down" - Live at the Greek Theatre - https://youtu.be/S79d6DZwPQQ?si=FMyhHLtJ5tUgfMl8


We’ll have a new episode next week – we’ll see you then!

ARE YOU A FAN OF BLUES HISTORY? US TOO!

 If you want to know more about these artists or other things that happened this week in the blues, be sure to visit our website or follow our Facebook page:

     https://bigtrainblues.com

     https://www.facebook.com/BigTrainBlues

Transcript

This Week In The Blues May 5 – May 11 2024

Piedmont blues singer and guitarist Blind Willie McTell was born May 5, 1898, and played with a fluid, syncopated fingerstyle guitar technique. He was born blind in one eye and lost his remaining vision by late childhood. He didn’t conform to what his contemporaries did. He came to use twelve-string guitars exclusively, and was also an adept slide guitarist, both of which were unusual among ragtime bluesmen. He never produced a major hit record, but he had a prolific recording career with different labels and under different names in the 1920s and 1930s. 

Here’s a Mississippi Ghosts story for you by the name of Kid Bailey. We don't know his date of birth and its believed he died sometime after 1960.  Two of his known recordings have survived: "Rowdy Blues" and "Mississippi Bottom Blues". They were recorded during his one documented recording session on September 25, 1929 at the Peabody Hotel in Memphis, TN.

Piedmont blues singer and guitarist Bumble Bee Slim was born on May 7, 1905. His real name is Admirl Amos Easton and he joined the Ringling Brothers circus for a bit before hopping a freight train north to Indianapolis, where he settled in 1928. There he met the pianist Leroy Carr and the guitarist Scrapper Blackwell. By 1931 he had moved to Chicago, where he made his first recordings, as Bumble Bee Slim. The following year his song "B&O Blues" was a hit, inspiring several other railroad blues songs

Chicago blues drummer Kansas City Red was born May 7, 1926. His real name is Arthur Stevenson, He played a major role in the development of urban Chicago blues sound. He performed and recorded with many notable blues artists, such as David "Honeyboy" Edwards, Robert Nighthawk, Sunnyland Slim, and Walter Horton.  

Robert Johnson was born on May 8, 1911. His landmark recordings in 1936 and 37 have influenced later generations of musicians. Although his recording career spanned only seven months, he is recognized as a master of the Delta blues, and as one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century. There’s a lot of intrigue surrounding his life and death, the one most known is the legend that he sold his soul to the devil at a local crossroads to achieve musical success. I’ve been lucky enough to have been to both the crossroads and Johnson’s gravesite down in Mississippi.

Blues rock guitarist Joe Bonnamassa was born May 8, 1977. In 1989 at the age of 12, Bonamassa opened for B.B. King for 20 shows. He's either won or been nominated for a variety of Blues Music Awards and Grammys, and scored numerous top ten albums. Joe Bonamassa carries the torch for old-fashioned, guitar-driven blues-rock and was raised on the likes of Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Jeff Beck. 

Charlie Spand was a blues and boogie-woogie pianist and was probably born on May 8, 1893, possibly in Alabama, Georgia, or Mississippi. He’s considered one of the most influential piano players of the 1920s. Spand was one of the boogie-woogie pianists who performed on Brady Street and Hastings Street in Detroit in the 1920s. In 1929, Spand relocated to Chicago, where he met and began performing with Blind Blake. He recorded 25 tracks between 1929 & 1931, with another 8 in June of 1940. Besides a few basic facts, the 33 scattered tracks he recorded are basically the only concrete proof that he even existed. 

Kansas Joe McCoy born May 11, 1905 in Raymond, Mississippi. McCoy was drawn to Memphis, Tennessee, where he played guitar and sang during the 1920s. There he met and teamed up his with future wife, Lizzie Douglas, a blues guitarist better known as “Memphis Minnie”.  their 1930 recording of the song "Bumble Bee" for Columbia Records was a hit. In 1930, the couple moved to Chicago, where they were an important part of the burgeoning blues scene there. 

Well blues fans, we just covered some of the highlights here. If you want to know more about these artists or other things that happened this week in the blues, be sure to follow our social media pages or visit our website at Big Train Blues.com. We’ll have a new episode next week – we’ll see you then!