This Week In The Blues: Dec 8 - Dec 14, 2024

HEY BLUES FANS - Here's the latest episode of "This Week In The Blues" for the week of Dec 8 - Dec 14, 2024.

Some of the highlights include harmonica blues legend Junior Wells, the original hound dog, Big Mama Thornton, and STAX records.

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:

Junior Wells - "Messin' With The Kid" - https://youtu.be/cWTieCjUhVw?si=4nfT5iYO0g6P6V1-

Big Mama Thornton - "Hound Dog" - https://youtu.be/BmpwvxW0gW0?si=INSClwLOh_E8mT1s

Join me every weekday from 12:15pm-12:45pm CT to watch a live stream on Facebook of the longest running blues radio show program. https://www.facebook.com/DeltaCulturalCenter

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: Dec 8 - Dec 14, 2024 - STAX

Rhythm and blues drummer Soko Richardson was born December 8, 1939 in New Iberia, Louisiana. His career spanned almost fifty years and he played with John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, the Ike & Tina Turner Revue, and many others. His musical career began at the age of 16 when he left home to tour the South with local bands. Not long after that, Ike Turner heard Richardson play in Texas. He hired him to play with his band, the Kings of Rhythm, and then later with the Ike & Tina Turner Revue.

harmonica blues legend Junior Wells was born December 9, 1934 in West Memphis, Arkansas! He is best known for his signature song "Messin' with the Kid" and his 1965 album Hoodoo Man Blues, described as one of the truly classic blues albums of the ‘60s.Initially taught by his cousin Junior Parker and by Sonny Boy Williamson II, Wells learned to play the harmonica skillfully by the age of seven. he performed and recorded with various notable blues musicians, including Muddy Waters, Earl Hooker, and Buddy Guy. He remained a fixture on the blues scene throughout his career and also crossed over to rock audiences while touring with the Rolling Stones. 

Louisiana blues singer and songwriter Jessie Hill was born December 9, 1932 in New Orleans! He’s best remembered for the classic song "Ooh Poo Pah Doo". He was playing drums in local bands by his teens and in 1951 he formed his own group, the House Rockers. He spent time drumming for Professor Longhair and Huey "Piano" Smith. In 1958 Hill formed a new version of the House Rockers allowing him to do more vocal work.

blues guitarist Blind Roosevelt Graves was born December 9, 1909. On all his recordings, he played with his brother Uaroy Graves who was also nearly blind and played the tambourine. They were credited as "Blind Roosevelt Graves and Brother". Their first recordings were made in 1929 for Paramount Records. Theirs is the earliest version recorded of the song "Guitar Boogie", and they exemplified the best in gospel singing with "I'll Be Rested". One blues researcher has suggested that their 1929 recording "Crazy About My Baby" "could be considered the first rock 'n' roll recording." 

And I am NOT going anywhere near the emotional tar pit triggered by the question “What’s the first Rock N Roll Song?”

Lets start off with a “Delta Ghost Story” about William "Casey Bill" Weldon who was possibly born December 10, 1909. I say “possibly because many details of Weldon's life are unconfirmed. Possibly was born in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and later lived and worked in Chicago, Illinois. He was one of the early musicians who recorded playing slide guitar. Playing a National steel guitar flat on his lap Hawaiian style, he was known as the "Hawaiian Guitar Wizard".

the original hound dog, Big Mama Thornton was born December 11, 1926! She was given her nickname, "Big Mama," by the manager of Harlem's Apollo Theater, because of her strong voice, size, and personality. Thornton stated that she was louder than any microphone and did not want a microphone to ever be as loud as she was. In 1984, she was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame.

Cornelius Green III, who you probably know as Lonesome Sundown, was born on December 12, 1928. His first hit was “Leave My Money Alone” in the mid 50s. Over the next eight years, Sundown’s output included “My Home Is a Prison,” “I’m a Mojo Man,” “I Stood By,” “I’m a Samplin’ Man,” and a host of memorable swamp classics, all of which preceded his 1965 retirement from the blues business to devote his life to the church. It was 1977 before Sundown could be coaxed back into a studio to cut a blues album titled Been Gone Too Long.

blues guitar maestro Wayne Bennett born December 13, 1931 in Sulphur, OK! Bennett is renowned for his fretwork w/ Bobby "Blue" Bland between the 1950s and 1980s. He started playing guitar in his teens, and performed in local bands. In 1950, he joined Amos Milburn's band, and made his first recordings with Milburn in California. In the early 1950s Bennett moved to Chicago and recorded in the mid-1950s with Otis Rush, Buddy Guy, Jimmy Reed, and Elmore James. In the late 50s he was picked to join the touring and recording orchestra of Bobby Bland.

Here’s another “Delta Ghost Story” for you. This one is about the blues singer and guitarist Garfield Akers. Between 1929 and 1930, he only recorded four sides, which are nonetheless historically significant. All the pieces are played fast and stomping for the time, clearly foreshadowing rhythm and blues as well as rock and roll. His most well-known song was his debut, "Cottonfield Blues", a duet with friend and longtime collaborator Mississippi Joe Callicott on second guitar. Outside of his recordings, not much is known of Akers' background or origins. 

Now a little about Stax Records was based in Memphis, Tennessee. It was originally founded in 1957 as Satellite Records, it changed its name to Stax Records in September 1961.The label was founded by Jim Stewart and his sister Estelle Axton. If you take the first two letters from each last name - STewart and AXton - you get Stax. Stax was influential in the creation of Southern soul and Memphis soul music. It also featured several ethnically integrated bands, including the label's house band, Booker T. & the M.G.'s. They also had a racially integrated team of staff and artists, which was unprecedented in that time of racial tension in Memphis and the South.

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!