This Week In The Blues: Nov 10 - Nov 16, 2024

HEY BLUES FANS - Here's the latest episode of "This Week In The Blues" for the week of Nov 10 - Nov 16, 2024.

Some of the highlights include delta blues legend Bukka White, blues harp player Carey Bell, and Chicago blues guitar legend Hubert Sumlin.

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:

Bukka White - "Aberdeen Mississippi Blues" - https://youtu.be/KbHtNMyAB7g?si=M3LnaxZD4k4vdSIY

Carey Bell - "Live at the International Jazz Festival" - https://youtu.be/hllxJhsyXME?si=ADFKax1aNkbMfV48

Hubert Sumlin - "Come On In My House" - https://youtu.be/S_5gVABCUH4?si=xw06FDwKvfNzfXnR


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 Nov 10 - Nov 16 2024

Texas blues blues guitarist & singer James "Thunderbird" Davis was born November 10, 1938. He recorded several singles for Duke Records in the early 1960s. He dropped out of public attention until his career was revived in 1989 with the release of his album Check Out Time. On January 24, 1992, two months before he was to record his second album, Davis collapsed and died of a heart attack on stage, halfway through a set at the Blues Saloon in Saint Paul, Minnesota. He was 53 years old.

Chicago blues guitarist Hip Linkchain was born on November 10, 1936. His best-known numbers were "Change My Blues" and "That Will Never Do". He was born in Jackson, Mississippi as Willie Richard raised in Louise, Mississippi. He picked cotton and relocated to Chicago in 1954. His talents as a composer definitely put him far above the average bluesmen. Linkchain worked with Lester Davenport, Pinetop Perkins, Tyrone Davis, and Little Walter. 

blues musician and singer Bobby Rush was born November 10, 1933 in Homer, Louisiana. As a young child he began experimenting with music using a sugarcane syrup bucket and a broom-wire diddley bow. Rush has won twelve Blues Music Awards and in 2017, at the age of 83, he won his first Grammy Award for the album Porcupine Meat. He is inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame, Mississippi Musicians Hall of Fame, and Rhythm & Blues Music Hall of Fame.

blues harmonica player George "Mojo" Buford was born November 10, 1929 in Hernando, Mississippi. He relocated to Chicago in 1952, forming the Savage Boys, which eventually was known as the Muddy Waters, Jr. Band. Buford first played in Waters's backing band from 1959 to 1962, in 1967, the early 1970s and returned for the final time after Jerry Portnoy departed to form the Legendary Blues Band. 

R&B singer LaVern Baker was born November 11, 1929 in Chicago and raised in Calumet City, Illinois. Baker began singing in Chicago clubs such as the Club DeLisa around 1946, often billed as Little Miss Sharecropper. She who had several hit records on the pop chart in the 1950s and early 1960s. In 1991, she became the second female solo artist inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, following Aretha Franklin in 1987.

delta blues legend Bukka White born November 12 1906 in Houston, Mississippi. He was a first cousin of B.B. King's mother. At 14 he went with an uncle in Clarksdale, Mississippi using his guitar playing as a way to attract women. He wasn’t the first and far from the last teenager who took up the guitar for that very reason. In Clarksdale, White came in contact with Delta blues legend Charley Patton, who no doubt was able to give him instruction on both endeavors. In addition to music, White pursued careers in sport, playing in Negro Leagues baseball and taking up boxing.  

New Orleans blues singer "Blue Lu" Barker was born November 13, 1913. She often sang and performed with her husband, guitarist Danny Barker, who was a regular of the New Orleans music scene. "Blue Lu" Barker's recording of "A Little Bird Told Me" was released by Capitol Records and reached the Billboard chart on December 18, 1948, and lasted 14 weeks on the chart, peaking at number 4. Barker was inducted into the Louisiana Blues Hall of Fame in 1997, one year before she died in New Orleans, at the age of 84.

guitarist Bobby Manuel was born November 13, 1945. He was hired by Stax Records in the late 1960s as an engineer and also quickly began doing studio work as a guitarist, becoming one of the company's most dependable and oft-used session players. Manuel's credits include playing with some of the blues and souls most iconic figures, including Albert King, Rufus Thomas, Luther Ingram, and Isaac Hayes.

Blues guitarist John Hammond was born November 13, 1942. Hammond usually plays acoustically, choosing National Reso-Phonic Guitars. In 1963 he became one of the first white artists to record a blues album. He is also the only person who ever had both Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix in his band at the same time. Yes - you heard that right albeit not for very long. It lasted 5 days in 1966 when Hammond played The Gaslight Cafe in New York City. To his regret, they never recorded together.

Here’s an alliteration for you - the VERY versatile vocalist Valerie Wellington was born November 14, 1959. She was a singer who, in her short career, switched from singing opera to singing Chicago blues. On her 1984 album, Million Dollar Secret, she worked with Sunnyland Slim, Billy Branch, and Magic Slim. She was trained as an opera singer and graduated from the American Conservatory of Music, but in 1982 she took up singing the blues in Chicago clubs.

Blues guitarist Anson Funderburgh was born November 14, 1954 in Plano, TX. He started Anson Funderburgh and the Rockets in 1977 that incorporates both Chicago blues and Texas blues. Their first album release was in 1981 and they continued to tour and perform at blues festivals.  In 1985, Funderburgh invited the blues harmonica player Sam Myers from Jackson, Mississippi to join. He stayed with the band until his death in 2006, appearing on eight albums with them. 

Blues harp player Carey Bell was born November 14, 1936. While most often known for his harmonica playing in the Chicago area, he also played bass. Bell played harmonica and bass guitar for other blues musicians from the late 1950s to the early 1970s before embarking on a solo career.  Besides his own albums, he recorded as an accompanist or duo artist with Earl Hooker, Robert Nighthawk, Lowell Fulson, Eddie Taylor, Louisiana Red and Jimmy Dawkins and was a frequent partner with his son, the guitarist Lurrie Bell. 

Chicago blues guitar legend Hubert Sumlin was born November 16 1931. Sumlin was born in Greenwood, Mississippi, and raised in Hughes, Arkansas. He got his first guitar when he was eight years old. As a longtime member of Howlin' Wolf's band, Sumlin has created some of the most iconic blues riffs we know today. Hubert Sumlin was inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame in 2008, was nominated for four Grammy Awards and won multiple Blues Music Awards. He was ranked number 43 in Rolling Stone's "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".

the “Father of the Blues” - none other than William Christopher Handy, born November 16,1873! W.C. Handy was one of the most influential songwriters in the United States. In 1903, while waiting for a train in Tutwiler, in the Mississippi Delta, Handy overheard a black man playing a steel guitar using a knife as a slide. Handy was the first to publish music in the blues form, taking Delta blues from a regional music style with a limited audience to a new level of popularity.

the "Godfather of Austin Blues" W. C. Clark was born November 16, 1939. Clark was born and raised in Austin, Texas, where he sang gospel music in the choir as a young boy. In the early 1950s at age 14 he first learned the guitar, and then later experimented with blues and jazz on the bass guitar. In the late 70s, Clark played in an Austin blues quintet named Triple Threat Revue, with Lou Ann Barton and Stevie Ray Vaughan.

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!