This Week In The Blues: April 20 - April 26, 2025

HEY BLUES FANS - Here's the latest episode of "This Week In The Blues" for the week of April 20 - April 26, 2025.

Some of the highlights include Billie Holiday's recording of the song "Strange Fruit", the great blues harp master George "Harmonica" Smith, and "The Velvet Bulldozer", Albert King.

Keep in mind that there's so much more that happened this week in the blues. 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:

Bessie Smith - "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out" - https://youtu.be/kxTyV_cBz7o?si=Lr-emBjTRR7hI1Ga

Clarence Gatemouth Brown - "Honky-Tonk" - https://youtu.be/Mnx1cheoSkg?si=FkiBO6kidAQyUEwI

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 Apr 20 - Apr 26 2025

Billie Holiday recorded the song "Strange Fruit" on April 20, 1939. The song protests the lynching of Black Americans with lyrics that compare the victims to the fruit of trees. Holiday recorded two versions of the song, one in 1939 and one in 1944. The song was highly regarded; the 1939 recording eventually sold a million copies in time becoming Holiday's biggest-selling recording. Holiday was so well known for her rendition of "Strange Fruit" that she created a relationship to the song that would make them inseparable. Holiday's version was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1978. It was also included in the "Songs of the Century" list of the Recording Industry of America and the National Endowment for the Arts.

One of the world's first great R&B labels, Modern Records, was formed by Saul and Jules Bihari on April 21, 1945 in Los Angeles. Modern's artists included Etta James, Joe Houston, Little Richard, Ike & Tina Turner and John Lee Hooker. The label released some of the most influential blues and R&B records of the 1940s and 1950s. Ike Turner was a talent scout and session musician for Modern Records in the 1950s. Turner discovered a number of artists for Modern, including Bobby "Blue" Bland, Howlin' Wolf, and Rosco Gordon, among many others.

Blues and R&B singer and saxophonist Benjamin "Bull Moose" Jackson was born on April 22, 1919 in Cleveland, OH. Some of his early band mates said that Jackson resembled a bull moose — and the colorful nickname stuck. Some of Jackson’s solo recordings were as funny as they were risqué stuff — “Big Ten Inch Record” and the astonishingly raunchy “Nosey Joe”, both from 1952 — were probably too suggestive to merit airplay, but they’re stellar examples of jump blues at its craziest. By the mid-1950s, Jackson was tired of touring and retired from music to work for a catering firm in Washington, D.C., although he occasionally still performed at private parties.   

The great blues harp master George "Harmonica" Smith was born April 22, 1924 in West Helena, Arkansas. He was brought up in Cairo, Illinois, and his mother taught him how to play the harmonica from the age of 4. He moved to Chicago in 1951 and joined the Muddy Waters' band in 1954. During this time he also worked with Otis Rush. In the mid 1950s he recorded several singles for the RPM Modern label under the name Little George Smith. In 1955, Smith went on tour with Little Willie John and Champion Jack Dupree.

The Blues Brothers (John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd) make their debut on Saturday Night Live on April 22 in 1978, later becoming the first characters from the show to get their own movie. They're not so much a comedy act as a musical one, as both Belushi and Aykroyd love to play the blues. For their debut on the show, they play a cover of "Soul Man" by Sam & Dave.

Boogie-woogie and blues piano player Charles "Cow Cow" Davenport was born April 23, 1894 in Anniston, Alabama. Davenport, who also made recordings under the pseudonyms of Bat The Humming Bird, George Hamilton, and The Georgia Grinder, is a member of the Alabama Music Hall of Fame. Davenport is one of eight children and started to play the piano at age 12. His father objected strongly to his musical aspirations and sent him to a theological seminary, where he was expelled for playing ragtime.

Highway 61 occupies an important place in the blues, serving both as a popular lyrical symbol for travel and the actual route by which many artists moved northward. The original route of U. S. Highway 61 that was mapped out in the 1920s ran from downtown New Orleans to Grand Portage, Minnesota, on the Canadian border and connected cities including Memphis, St. Louis, and St. Paul. Within Mississippi the highway was initially mostly gravel and ran approximately four hundred miles through the downtown areas of many communities. 

Country blues singer and songwriter Charlie "Specks" McFadden born April 24, 1895. There is little information about his life outside of his recordings. He also used the nickname "Black Patch", both nicknames referring to his reported "weak eyes". McFadden was considered to be one of the top blues singers in St. Louis. He made his first recordings in 1929. One of McFadden's tracks was "Gambler's Blues", the title of which he may have been well versed to write and sing about. McFadden was arrested on 13 separate occasions between 1929 and 1935, with ten of those charges being for gambling. Little is known of his life apart from this.

The Velvet Bulldozer, Albert King was born on April 25, 1923! Without Albert King, modern guitar music would not sound as it does. His style has influenced both black and white blues players from Otis Rush and Robert Cray to Eric Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughan. Albert King had his own style and unique tone from the beginning. King plays guitar left-handed, without re-stringing the guitar from the right-handed setup. This “upside-down” playing accounts for his difference in tone, since he pulls down on the same strings that most players push up on when bending the blues notes.

Blues singer and guitarist John Ned "Johnny" Shines was born on April 26, 1915. He was vastly under-recorded during his prime years, even quitting the music business for a time, but was rediscovered in the late '60s and recorded and toured steadily for quite some time. He’s best known as a traveling companion of Robert Johnson. Shines eventually made his way north to Chicago, and made the transition to electrified urban blues with ease, helped in part by his powerful and impassioned vocals.

Blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist Shirley Griffith was born April 26, 1907. Based mainly in Indianapolis, he is best known for his recordings "Walkin' Blues" and "Bad Luck Blues". He learned to play the guitar at the age of 10 and later his friend and mentor Delta blues guitarist Tommy Johnson gave him lessons and offered to help him get started in a music career. But by Griffith's own account, he was too “wild and reckless” in those days. He settled in Indianapolis working in automotive factories. While there he became friends with Scrapper Blackwell and Leroy Carr.

The "Mother of the Blues” “Ma" Rainey was born April 26, 1886. Ma Rainey wasn’t the first blues singer to make records, but by all rights she should have been. In an era when women were the marquee names in blues, Rainey was once the most celebrated of all; the “Mother of the Blues” had been singing the music for more than 20 years before she made her recording debut on Paramount in 1923. With the advent of blues records, she became even more influential, immortalizing such songs as “See See Rider,” “Bo-Weavil Blues,” and “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.”

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 and we’ll talk about Blues slide guitarist Homesick James and Chicago blues guitarist Otis Rush – we’ll see you then!