This Week In The Blues: Feb 9 - Feb 15, 2025

HEY BLUES FANS - Here's the latest episode of "This Week In The Blues" for the week of February 9 - February 15, 2025.

Some of the highlights include acoustic blues singer-songwriter and guitarist Catfish Keith, blues singer and guitarist Pinkney "Pink" Anderson, and Chicago’s West side institution Magic Sam.

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:

Catfish Keith - "Poor Boy Long Way From Home" - https://youtu.be/lEkFLG40rE4?si=AWW_OelPCS095qxg

Magic Sam - "Magic Sam's Boogie 1969 (live)" - https://youtu.be/Uu2Smmcuu2Q?si=7WK1-dMlIyNJFKIw

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: Feb 09 - Feb 15 2025

Acoustic blues singer-songwriter and guitarist Catfish Keith was born February 9, 1962 in East Chicago, Indiana. He is best known for his work on National Reso-Phonic Guitars. his 1984 debut album, Catfish Blues was by released by Kicking Mule Records. He’s released several albums since, including 2020's Blues at Midnight. Twice a Blues Music Award nominee for 'Best Acoustic Blues Album', he’s had ten #1 independent radio chart hit albums. In 2008, Keith was inducted into the Iowa Blues Hall of Fame.

blues singer and multi-instrumentalist Arbee Stidham who was born February 9, 1917.  Stidham was the sort of singer that thrived in the R&B market after World War II; although essentially a bluesman, he wasn't a blues purist... his mixture of blues, jazz and gospel made him popular in the following decades. Stidham also made many festival and club appearances nationwide and internationally. He did occasional blues lectures at Cleveland State University in the ’70s.

blues guitarist and singer Willie Trice born in Chapel Hill, North Carolina February 10 in either 1908, 1910 or 1911 and played in the Piedmont blues guitar style. In July 1937, Trice recorded two sides with his brother playing second guitar, "Come On in Here Mama" and "Let Her Go God Bless Her". Without any commercial success, Trice did not record again until the 1970s. However, he was well known for playing locally in the 1930s and 1940s in North Carolina. 

blues singer-songwriter and guitarist Oscar "TV Slim" Wills, was born February 10, 1916 in Houston, Texas. His best-selling work was 1957’s "Flat Foot Sam", which helped propel his recording career through to the date of his death. He was not a full-time musician, as his main source of income was working as a television repairman. And that’s where his blues name came from, courtesy of Jewel Records owner Stan Lewis.

Josh White was born on Feb 11, 1914 in Greenville, South Carolina. He also recorded under the names Pinewood Tom and Tippy Barton in the 1930s. In the ‘20s and ‘30s he became a prominent race records artist, with a prolific output in genres including Piedmont blues, country blues, gospel music, and social protest songs. In 1931, White moved to New York, and his repertoire expanded to include urban blues, jazz, traditional folk songs, and political protest songs, and he was in demand as an actor on radio, Broadway, and film.

blues singer and guitarist Pinkney "Pink" Anderson was born February 12, 1900 in Laurens, South Carolina. Syd Barrett, of English band Pink Floyd, created the band's name by juxtaposing the first names of Anderson and North Carolina bluesman Floyd Council. Starting in 1914 he joined the Indian Remedy Company to entertain the crowds selling a concoction purported to have medicinal qualities. In the 1950s Anderson toured with Leo "Chief Thundercloud" Kahdot and his medicine show, often with the harmonica player Arthur "Peg Leg Sam" Jackson.

New Orleans blues drummer Charles "Hungry" Williams was born February 12, 1935. He’s best known for the innovative and influential technique he used on numerous recordings that came out of New Orleans in the 1950s and 1960s. Growing up in the 2nd Ward of New Orleans, Williams said that "ever since I been big enough to know myself I used to be always beating on something, tin cans or something like that." It was also a fertile musical area where early on he met and played with the likes of Professor Longhair and Fats Domino.

Chicago blues guitarist Sam Maghett, better known as Magic Sam, was born February 14, 1937. No blues guitarist better represented the adventurous modern sound of Chicago’s West side more proudly than Magic Sam. Born in 1937 in the Mississippi Delta, he moved to Chicago in 1950, picking up a few blues guitar pointers from his new neighbor Syl Johnson. His uncle, harpist Shakey Jake Harris, encouraged Sam’s blues progress and gigged with him later when both were Westside institutions.

The brilliant & highly influential blues legend James "Kokomo" Arnold was born February 15, 1901. Arnold was a left-handed slide guitarist with an intense style of playing and rapid-fire vocal delivery that set him apart from his contemporaries. He got his nickname in 1934 after releasing "Old Original Kokomo Blues" for Decca Records, a cover version of Scrapper Blackwell's blues song about the city of Kokomo, Indiana. Arnold began playing in the early 1920s worked as a farmhand, as a steelworker and ran a bootlegging business.

blues-rock- guitarist Gary Clark, Jr was born February 15, 1984 in Austin, Texas. He is known for his fusion of blues, rock and soul music with elements of hip hop. Throughout his career, Clark has been a prolific live performer, which has been documented in two live releases. He has shared the stage with Eric Clapton, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, B.B. King and the Rolling Stones. In 2014, Clark was awarded a Grammy for Best Traditional R&B performance and three more Grammy wins in 2020.

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!