This Week In The Blues: June 15 - June 21, 2025

HEY BLUES FANS - Here's the latest episode of "This Week In The Blues" for the week of June 15 - June 21, 2025.

Some of the highlights include "The Blues Brothers" movie premiere in Chicago, one of the most popular of the classic blues singers of her time, Sara Martin, and jazz, country, and St. Louis blues pioneer Herman "Ace" Wallace.

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:

John Lee Hooker - Boom Boom (from "The Blues Brothers") - https://youtu.be/nUUyFrHERpU?si=0i62sJdT9LB8Jcae

Sara Martin with King Oliver's Orchestra - "Death Sting Me Blues (1928) - https://youtu.be/GLtHzpr3Oxo?si=StUYNGTutdKkRy4t

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 June 15 – June 21 2025

Chicago blues singer and bass guitar player Aron Burton was born on June 15, 1938.  In a long career as a sideman, he played with Freddie King, Albert Collins and Junior Wells and released several solo albums. His recorded work was nominated four times for a Blues Music Awards. In 1978, Burton joined his brother, Larry, in Albert Collins's backing band, the Icebreakers, and performed on Collins's Grammy Award–nominated album Ice Pickin'.

On June 16, 1980 "The Blues Brothers" premiered in Chicago, Illinois, where most of it was filmed. It was released nationally 4 days later. It features musical numbers by James Brown, Cab Calloway (in his final feature film role), Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Chaka Khan, Big Walter Horton, Pinetop Perkins, and John Lee Hooker. Other cameos include Steven Spielberg, Paul Reubens (Pee-wee Herman) Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh, and singer/songwriter Stephen Bishop. In 2020, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

Tampa Red first recorded the blues standard "Love with a Feeling" on June 16 in 1938 in Chicago. Several blues artists have interpreted and recorded the song, and when Freddie King adapted it in 1961, it became his first single to appear in the record charts. Tampa Red recorded "Love with a Feeling" as a mid-tempo twelve-bar blues. Accompanying Red, who sang and played slide guitar, were Black Bob Hudson on piano and an unknown bass player.

One of the most popular of the classic blues singers of her time, Sara Martin was born June 18, 1884. She was billed as "The Famous Moanin' Mama". She began a successful recording career when she was signed by Okeh Records in 1922. She was among the most recorded of the classic blues singers and made numerous recordings, including a few under the names Margaret Johnson and Sally Roberts. Throughout the 1920s she toured and recorded with such performers as Fats Waller, Clarence Williams, King Oliver, and Sylvester Weaver. 

St. Louis blues pioneer Herman "Ace" Wallace was also born on June 18 in 1925. One of the mainstays of the St. Louis blues scene, Wallace spent the 50s and 60s as a member of influential local band ‘Big’ George Brock And The Houserockers, and later while in Detroit, where he played with John Lee Hooker and Earl Hooker. Although born in St. Louis, when he was three, Wallace’s parents relocated to Indiana where his father worked in the steel mills. Eight years later the family returned to St. Louis, at which time Herman and his brother Calvin began to learn the mandolin and harmonica. Wallace took the name Ace (formed from the initials of his sister Anita and brothers Calvin and Edward) and formed his own band. Ace Wallace And The Trumps. 

A bit of blues history for you. "When the Levee Breaks" was recorded on June 18, 1929, in New York City in 1929 by Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie. When they wrote and recorded "When the Levee Breaks," the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 was still fresh in people's memories. The flooding affected 26,000 square miles of the Mississippi Delta – hundreds were killed and hundreds of thousands of residents were forced to evacuate. The event is the subject of several blues songs, including "Backwater Blues" by Bessie Smith, "Mississippi Heavy Water Blues" by Barbecue Bob, and Charlie Patton's, “High Water Everywhere, Parts 1 and 2”

Blues duo Leroy Carr and Scrapper Blackwell recorded "How Long, How Long Blues" on June 19, 1928.  It is based on "How Long Daddy", recorded in 1925 by Ida Cox with Papa Charlie Jackson. The song became an early blues standard, and its melody inspired many later songs. It was a massive hit in the prewar blues era, a song that every blues singer and piano player had to know. In 1988, "How Long, How Long Blues" was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame and in 2012, the song received a Grammy Hall of Fame Award.

Swamp blues harmonica great Lazy Lester was born on June 20, 1933. Contrary to his colorful nickname, Lazy Lester swore he never was all that lethargic. But he seldom was in much of a hurry either, although the relentless pace of his recording schedule, including the swamp blues classics “I’m a Lover Not a Fighter” and “I Hear You Knockin’” might contradict that statement. While growing up outside of Baton Rouge, he was influenced by Jimmy Reed and Little Walter. His entry into playing professionally arrived quite by accident. While riding on a bus sometime in the mid-’50s, he met guitarist Lightnin' Slim , who was searching fruitlessly for an AWOL harpist. The two musician’s styles meshed seamlessly, and Lester became Slim ’s harpist of choice.

Chicago blues musician Johnny "Yard Dog" Jones was born on June 21, 1941, on a cotton plantation in Crawfordsville, Arkansas. Influenced by Robert Johnson and T-Bone Walker, Jones stated that when he was in his early teens he was given harmonica lessons by Little Walter. At the age of 18, he moved to Chicago and played in clubs and on the blues circuit for several decades before recording his debut album at the age of 55. He won a W.C. Handy Award in 1998.

On June 21 in 1948, the Columbia label announces its new technological breakthrough, a "long-playing" vinyl phonograph record that can hold up to 23 minutes of music on a side. At the time the LP was introduced, nearly all phonograph records for home use were made of an abrasive (and therefore noisy) shellac compound, employed a much larger groove, and played at approximately 78 revolutions per minute (rpm), limiting the playing time of a 12-inch diameter record to less than five minutes per side.

New Releases: 

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 cover Delta blues musician T-Model Ford and Blues guitar player Big Bill Broonzy – we’ll see you then!