This Week In The Blues: June 22, 2025

HEY BLUES FANS - Here's the latest episode of "This Week In The Blues" for the week of June 22, 2025.

Some of the highlights include Texas blues guitarist Lester Williams, Chicago bluesman Johnny "Big Moose" Walker, and jazz, country, and blues guitar player Big Bill Broonzy.

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:

Lester Williams - "I Know That Chick" - https://youtu.be/nMmfLEB-2yM?si=1sHRPWlltXuYRs1T

Big Bill Broonzy - "Hey Hey" - https://youtu.be/_2Npu8KFsIY?si=GYOS1yU3W5sduYvA

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 22 - June 28, 2025

Blues musician J.W. Warren was born on June 22, 1921, and grew up in Ariton, AL. Strangely enough, the initials didn't stand for anything; his actual name was “J.W.”  He picked up and learned the guitar when he was around 16 years old, and he was soon playing at local juke joints and barbecues. He worked at a sawmill for a time before entering the U.S. military while still in his teens, serving for 14 years. After the army he returned home where he worked as a farmer and resumed playing at the local jukes, often splitting time with Big Mama Thornton, who was also from the area. Now J.W. Warren has claimed he was the subject of Thornton's biggest song, "Hound Dog," but the jury is out on that one.

Texas blues guitarist Lester Williams was born June 24, 1920. He signed a recording contract and "Winter Time Blues" was a regional hit. His biggest success was "I Can't Lose with the Stuff I Use" in 1952. His popularity rose to the extent that he appeared in February 1953 at Carnegie Hall, in New York, on a bill that included Dinah Washington, Billy Eckstine and Nat King Cole. The song "I Can't Lose with the Stuff I Use" was covered a decade later by B.B. King. Williams released several singles in the 1950s. His recording career lasted from 1949 to 1956, but he remained a stalwart of the Houston blues circuit for decades, including a tour of Europe in 1986.

Delta blues musician T-Model Ford was probably born on June 24, 1923. Unable to remember his exact date of birth, records indicate Ford was born in Forest, Mississippi, sometime between 1921 and 1925. Ford worked in various blue collar jobs, such as plowing fields, working at a sawmill, and later in life becoming a lumber company foreman and then a truck driver. At this time, Ford was sentenced to ten years on a chain gang for murder Ford took up the guitar when his fifth wife left him and gave him a guitar as a leaving present and began his musical career in his early 70s. Ford trained himself without being able to read music or guitar tabs. His musical style combined the rawness of Delta blues with Chicago blues and juke joint blues styles.

The blues classic "Worried Life Blues" was recorded on June 24, 1941. Big Maceo recorded it in Chicago and it later became a blues standard. Worried Life Blues' was elected to the Blues Hall of Fame in the first year of balloting in the Classics of Blues Recordings category. It was also the first song ever recorded by singer-pianist Major 'Big Maceo' Merriweather, in 1941, proving he had made the right move by relocating from Detroit to Chicago not long before with the intention of furthering his musical career. 'Worried Life Blues' eclipsed the song that inspired it, Sleepy John Estes' 'Someday Baby Blues,' as Maceo emotively immortalized the refrain 'Some day, baby, I ain't gonna worry my life no more.'

Larry "The Mole" Taylor born on June 26, 1942. While he’s best known for his work as a member of Canned Heat, he had been a session bassist for The Monkees and Jerry Lee Lewis. You heard that right…a session player for The Monkees. Taylor became a leading exponent and practitioner of the acoustic upright bass in the contemporary blues scene. He was quite prominently seen with his upright bass in the live blues film, Lightning in a Bottle.

Blues singer and pianist "St. Louis" Jimmy Oden born June 26 in 1903 in Nashville. He lost both parents by the time he was eight. He sang and taught himself to play the piano and in his teens, he left home for St. Louis and began performing with the pianist Roosevelt Sykes. After more than ten years playing together they both moved to Chicago. It was there that he was nicknamed “St. Louis Jimmy” and had a solid performing and recording career for the next four decades.

Blues guitar player Big Bill Broonzy was born June 26 back in 1903 in Scott, Mississippi, just across the river from Arkansas. His family were itinerant sharecroppers and the descendants of ex-slaves. Broonzy learned to play a cigar box fiddle from his uncle, and as a teenager, he played violin in local churches, at community dances, and in a country string band. His career began in the 1920s and played steadily through the following decades. In Europe, Broonzy proved more popular than at any time in the United States with a prolific recording career there. When he died in 1958, and left a recorded legacy which, in sheer size and depth, well exceeds that of any blues artist born on his side of the year 1900. His playing style continues to influence blues players today.

Chicago bluesman Johnny "Big Moose" Walker Born June 27, 1927 in Stoneville, Mississippi. Walker was primarily a piano player but was also proficient on the electronic organ and even played the bass guitar. He began his musical career in 1947 playing piano and touring with various blues bands and backing such notable artists as Ike Turner, Sonny Boy Williamson II, Elmore James, Lowell Fulson and Choker Campbell.  Walker moved to Chicago in the late 1950s and over the next decade accompanied Sunnyland Slim, Otis Rush, Muddy Waters, Little Johnny Jones, and Howlin' Wolf. He got his stage name as a child because of his long, flowing hair.

Honeyboy Edwards was born in Shaw, Mississippi, on June 28, 1915. When he died he was the last known living link to someone who played and traveled with Robert Johnson. For much of his life, Edwards was underappreciated, but his slashing, Delta-drenched guitar and gruff vocals were as authentic as Delta blues ever got. Edwards childhood pals included Tommy McClennan and Robert Petway. Rambling around the South, Honeyboy experienced the great Charley Patton and played often with Johnson. He remained active up through the first decade of the 21st century, collaborating with Henry Townsend, Pinetop Perkins, and Robert Lockwood Jr on Last of the Great Mississippi Delta Bluesmen: Live in Dallas, which won the 2008 Grammy Award for Best Traditional Blues Album.

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!