This Week In The Blues: September 21 - September 27, 2025

HEY BLUES FANS - Here's the latest episode of "This Week In The Blues" for the week of September 21 - September 27, 2025

Some of the highlights include blues legend Blind Lemon Jefferson, Mississippi Juke Joint Legend Roosevelt “Booba” Barns, and blues harmonica player, record producer, blues radio show host and owner of The Rhythm Room, Bob Corritore.

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:

Roosevelt Booba Barnes in Flowing Fountain, Greenville (MS) 1983 - "I'm going home" & "Bluebird" (Live Video) - https://youtu.be/mDVEQEYySuw?si=QprOmub0Blzvpne1

John Primer and Bob Corritore - "Drive" (Live Video) - https://youtu.be/yUhY4JEL5jQ?si=yktu2EzmAuQLfYAx

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

Blues guitar player Jesse Ed Davis was born on September 21, 1944 in Norman, Oklahoma. his native American ancestry was a blend of Comanche, Seminole, and Muscogee. He was well regarded as a session artist and solo performer, he was a member of Taj Mahal's backing band, and played with musicians such as Eric Clapton, John Lennon, and George Harrison. In 2018, Davis was posthumously inducted into the Native American Music Hall of Fame.

On September 22 in 1965 Junior Wells started recording the album Hoodoo Man Blues. It's regarded by many blues fans as the finest LP ever recorded as an album session - rather than as a collection of singles from different sessions. The recording marked one of the first times a working Chicago blues band had ever been brought into the studio to do a whole album. Junior Wells transferred his South Side blues club act to the studio with ease, superbly supported by Buddy Guy, bassist Jack Myers and drummer Bill Warren.

Chicago blues guitar player Mighty Joe Young was born on September 23, 1927, in Shreveport, Louisiana! He was an amateur boxer in the 1940s, but he later recalled that "It was nothing to write home about... I decided that music was the best thing to do." There was a time during the late ’70s and early ’80s when Mighty Joe Young was one of the leading blues guitarists on Chicago’s budding North side blues circuit. Beginning in the late 1950s he performed and/or recorded with a "who's who" of Chicago blues artists including Otis Rush, Magic Sam, Jimmy Rogers, Billy Boy Arnold, Willie Dixon, Tyrone Davis and Jimmy Dawkins.

The great Ray Charles born September 23 in 1930! Among friends and fellow musicians, he preferred being called "Brother Ray" and was often referred to as "the Genius". Charles was blinded during childhood, possibly due to glaucoma. Charles pioneered the soul music genre during the 1950s by combining blues, jazz, rhythm and blues, and gospel styles into the music he recorded for Atlantic. He contributed to the integration of country music, rhythm and blues, and pop music during the 1960s with his crossover success. While he was with ABC, Charles became one of the first black musicians to be granted artistic control by a mainstream record company.

Chicago blues guitar player Fenton Robinson was born on September 23, 1935! He was active in the Chicago blues scene in the 1960's through 1980's. A product of the Mississippi delta, Robinson was born near Greenwood, Mississippi. He left home at the age of 18 and moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where he recorded his first single "Tennessee Woman" in 1957. In 1959, he made his first recording of "As the Years Go Passing By", later recorded by several other blues artists. in 1967 He recorded his signature song, "Somebody Loan Me a Dime". In 2023 he was inducted in the Blues Hall of Fame.

blues legend Blind Lemon Jefferson was born on September 24, 1893! He was one of the most popular blues singers of the 1920s and has been called the "Father of the Texas Blues". Blind Lemon Jefferson was to Texas blues what Charley Patton was to Mississippi blues. His performances had a direct influence upon such legendary Texas musicians as Lightnin' Hopkins, T-Bone Walker, and Leadbelly, while his recordings helped bring his influence to an even larger audience. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame selected Jefferson's "Matchbox Blues" as one of the 500 songs that shaped rock and roll. Jefferson in the inaugural class inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980.

blues singer and guitar player Robert "Chick" Willis was born Sept 24, 1934, and is the cousin of blues artist Chuck Willis. Chick made his vinyl debut in 1956 with a single, "You're Mine," after winning a talent contest at Atlanta's Magnolia Ballroom. He is primarily remembered for his ribald, dozens-based track "Stoop Down Baby." He cut the original version in 1972, selling a ton of 45s for the jukebox market only because the tune's lyrics were too raunchy for airplay. He released a steady stream of albums in the 1980s and 1990s, and continued to record into the 2000s.

Tarheel Slim was born on September 24, 1923. His real name is Allen Bunn, and he recorded in virtually every postwar musical genre imaginable. However, spirituals were Bunn’s first love. While still in North Carolina during the early ’40s, this guitar player worked with the Gospel Four and then the Selah Jubilee Singers. Bunn broke away in 1949 to form the Jubilators. During a single day in New York in 1950, they recorded for four labels under four different names. One of those labels was Apollo, who convinced them to go secular. That’s basically how the Larks, one of the seminal early R&B vocal groups came to be. 

blues singer and guitar player Rosa Lee Hemphill on Sept 25 in 1910 in Como, Mississippi, in the heart of the delta. She shortened her last name to just ”Hill” and played music that was in the tradition of north Mississippi. Her song "Bullyin' Well", which was recorded by Alan Lomax, has been included on a number of releases over the years. The daughter of country blues musician Sid Hemphill, Rosa Lee learned guitar from her father and by the time she was ten, was playing dances with him. Several of her songs were recorded by Alan Lomax in 1959, including "Rolled and Tumbled”. Hill and her husband were sharecroppers and lived in perpetual poverty. She is the aunt of blues singer Jessie Mae Hemphill.

Mississippi Juke Joint Legend Roosevelt “Booba” Barns was born September 25 in 1936 in Longwood, MS. He learned to play harmonica at 8, started playing juke joints at 16, and was a regular performer in the clubs on Greenville’s famed Nelson Street by the age of 17. His nickname came from a brother who said that Roosevelt "was worse than a booby trap." Barnes opened a nightclub, the Playboy Club, in 1985, and played there with a backing group called the Playboys.

The one and only Bob Corritore was born September 27 in 1956! If you’re looking for someone who has done everything with the blues, look no further. He’s a blues harmonica player, record producer, blues radio show host and owner of The Rhythm Room, a music venue in Phoenix, Arizona.  Corritore's first live performance came in his teens on Chicago’s Maxwell Street. He started attending performances at clubs on the South and West Sides, where he was mentored by Louis Myers, Lester Davenport, Junior Wells, Big Leon Brooks, Little Mack Simmons, Big Walter and others, who regularly invited him on stage to play.

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 have a great episode next week and we’ll talk about slues singer KoKo Taylor and "The Ice Man" Albert Collins. You won’t want to miss it so…we’ll see you then!