This Week In The Blues: March 09 - March 15, 2025

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

Some of the highlights include Swamp blues giant Lightnin' Slim, One of the first of the Blues Divas, Clara Smith, and blues guitarist Ronnie Earl.

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:

Lightnin' Slim - "Hello Mary Lee" - https://youtu.be/lZ-JXtx2dW0?si=SjaSUSKmNuLnJcY7

Ronnie Earl and the Broadcasters - "The Big Train" - https://youtu.be/ki3QwnLrVBA?si=8ciq77VQVmrfZ8mw

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 Mar 09 – Mar 15 2025

blues singer Georgia White who was probably born on March 9 1903. Little is known of her early life, but it is thought that she was born in Sandersville, Georgia. By the late 1920s she was singing in clubs in Chicago. She made her first recording, "When You're Smiling, the Whole World Smiles With You," in 1930. She returned to the studio in 1935, and over the next six years recorded over 100 tracks for Decca Records, usually accompanied by the pianist Richard M. Jones and later by the guitarist Lonnie Johnson.

blues guitarist Ronnie Earl was born March 10, 1953, Queens, New York. During his college years, he attended a Muddy Waters concert at the Jazz Workshop in Boston. After seeing Waters perform, Earl took a serious interest in the guitar, which he had first picked up in 1973. His first job was as a rhythm guitarist at The Speakeasy, a blues club in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In addition to playing in the Boston blues scene, Earl traveled twice by Greyhound Bus to Chicago, where he was introduced to the Chicago blues scene by Koko Taylor.

electric guitar innovator Harvey Mandel was born March 11, 1945 is best known as a member of Canned Heat. He also played with Charlie Musselwhite and John Mayall as well as maintaining a solo career. On the night that Henry Vestine quit Canned Heat, Mandel was in the band's dressing room at the Fillmore West. Mike Bloomfield joined them for the first set, and Mandel came in for the second set. His third performance with the band was the Woodstock Festival in 1969. His playing is known for it’s "relentless fuzztone, feedback-edged solos, and unusual syncopated phrasing."

Early country blues musician Laughing Charley Lincoln was born March 11, 1900. He often recorded with his brother Robert Hicks, who you probably know as Barbecue Bob. He was born Charlie Hicks, Jr in Lithonia, Georgia. In his teens he was taught to play the guitar by Savannah Weaver, the mother of Curley Weaver, and performed in the Lithonia area until 1920. 

One-man band musician Jesse Fuller, best known for his song "San Francisco Bay Blues" was born March 12, 1896. His infectious rhythm and gentle charm graced old folk tunes, spirituals, and blues alike. Fuller was equipped with a band full of instruments operated by various parts of his anatomy. Performing as a one-man band, he began to get spots on local television shows and nightclubs. He wrote “San Francisco Bay Blues” and the song helped him land a record contract. In the late ’50s and early ’60s Fuller became one of the key figures of the blues revival. Throughout the ’60s and ’70s he toured America and Europe.

Chicago electric blues guitarist Melvin Taylor was born March 13, 1959 in Jackson, Mississippi. Taylor's parents moved to Chicago in 1962, taking him along. There he joined a popular music group called the Transistors. He switched his focus to blues music when the group disbanded in the early 1980s. He found work playing in clubs on the West Side of Chicago, often at Rosa's Lounge. During the 1980s he joined Pinetop Perkins and the Legendary Blues Band in a year-long European tour. He continues to record and tour and more information about his latest tour dates and releases can be found at his website: melvintaylor.com

Swamp blues giant Lightnin' Slim was born March 13, 1913 on a farm outside St. Louis, MO, although some say he was born in Good Pine, LA. His birth name is Otis Hicks. His first recording was "Bad Luck Blues" (as in "If it wasn't for bad luck, I wouldn't have no luck at all"), The song was released in 1954. Starting in the mid-1950s, Slim recorded for a dozen years, often collaborating with his brother-in-law Slim Harpo and with the harmonica player Lazy Lester. He was ranked as one of the five great bluesmen of the 1950s, along with Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Howlin' Wolf and Sonny Boy Williamson.

One of the first of the Blues Divas, Clara Smith, was born March 13, 1894. She was a classic female blues singer, billed as the "Queen of the Moaners", despite the fact she had a lighter and sweeter voice than many of her contemporaries. In 1910, Smith began working on African-American theater circuits, in tent shows, and vaudeville. By 1923, she settled in New York City, appearing at cabarets and speakeasies there. Soon after she made the first of her commercially successful series of recordings. Smith recorded a total of 122 tracks, with her record sales being topped only by Bessie Smith. Clara Smith was known all across the country, even performing on the West coast, which was rare for a blues singer.

Country blues great Robert Pete Williams born March 14, 1914 in Zachary Louisiana! His music employed unconventional structures and guitar tunings, and his songs are often about the time he served in prison. Williams was born to a family of sharecroppers and spent his childhood picking cotton and cutting sugar cane. At the age of 20, Williams fashioned a crude guitar by attaching five copper strings to a cigar box, and soon after bought a cheap, mass-produced one. He was discovered by musicologists in Louisiana State Penitentiary, where he was serving a life sentence for fatally shooting a man in a nightclub in 1956. The parole board was convinced to commute his sentence to 12 years. 

A little blues history for you. On March 14, 1927 Blind Lemon Jefferson recorded the song "Match Box Blues" for Okeh Records in Atlanta, Georgia. The song was later recorded by several blues and country swing musicians, such as Lead Belly, Big Bill Broonzy, and the Shelton Brothers. The song was reinterpreted as a rockabilly song titles "Matchbox" and recorded by Carl Perkins in December 1956 and by fellow Sun Records performer, Jerry Lee Lewis. The Blind Lemon Jefferson version of “Match Box Blues” was inducted in the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999.

Blues guitarist "Lightnin'" Hopkins was born March 15, 1912 in Centerville, Texas. A record company executive dubbed him "Lightnin'" Hopkins when he was paired with blues piano player Wilson "Thunder" Smith. At the age of 8 he met Blind Lemon Jefferson at a church picnic and went on to learn the blues from his distant older cousin, the country blues singer Alger "Texas" Alexander. Hopkins's style was born from spending many hours playing informally without a backing band. His distinctive fingerstyle technique often included playing bass, rhythm, lead, and percussion at the same time. Much of Hopkins's music follows the standard 12-bar blues template, but his phrasing was free and loose. He often referred to himself as "Poor Lightnin'" in his songs

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 that will include stories about Founding member of the Fabulous Thunderbirds Jimmie Vaughan and Blues guitarist and juke joint legend Willie King. It’s going to be a great show - we’ll see you then!