This Week In The Blues: October 05 - October 11, 2025

HEY BLUES FANS - Here's the latest episode of "This Week In The Blues" for the week of October 05 - October 11, 2025

Some of the highlights include blues guitar player Johnnie Bassett, the day BB King recorded "The Thrill is Gone", and delta blues singer and guitar player "Mississippi" Joe Callicott.

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:

B.B. King - "The Thrill Is Gone" [Crossroads 2010] (Official Live Video) - https://youtu.be/SgXSomPE_FY?si=xuDR-E9zkMywmfJK

Mississippi Joe Callicott - "Goodbye Baby Blues" - https://youtu.be/KC5H9P4F5Uk?si=SRGjwxC7a9H84LC2

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!

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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: Oct 5 - Oct 11, 2025

I happen to share a birthday with George "Little Hat" Jones who was born October 5, 1899. This Texas blues musician was a street busker in the 1920s in San Antonio. He dropped out of school at the age of 13 to support the family farm after his father suffered from illnesses and crops were destroyed. The nickname "Little Hat" was acquired from a construction job in Garland, where Jones wore a hat with part of the brim torn. He recorded two compositions, "New Two Sixteen Blues" and "Two String Blues", released as a single by Okeh Records on June 15, 1929. That same day, he played guitar on nine tracks by Alger "Texas" Alexander in the Okeh studio.

Blues singer Pearl Dickson may not have left behind a thick catalog, but the few tracks she recorded made her a fascinating, if shadowy, figure in Memphis and country blues. Born in Somerville, Tennessee on October 5, 1903, she stepped briefly into the spotlight on December 12, 1927, when she recorded four songs for Columbia Records in Memphis with guitar players Maylon and Richard “Hacksaw” Harney. Little is known of her life outside this fleeting recording session. Her lyrics, however, provide intriguing clues to the mindset of her generation. In “Little Rock Blues,” she sang: “I started to heaven, but I changed my mind / But I’m going to Little Rock, where I can have a better time.”

Blues piano player Sammy Price was born October 6, 1908, in Honey Grove, Texas. Although Price's style was steeped in the barrelhouse blues tradition, his first musical exposure came from church. Later on he took lessons from Professor Cobb in Waco, TX, who bluntly told young Sammy he had no talent. Fortunately for us, Price ignored him, picked up piano, and never looked back. By 1927, Price was touring on the Theater Owners’ Booking Association circuit. He hit Kansas City in 1930, leading the house band at the Yellow Front Café, then moved on to Chicago and Detroit before landing in New York in 1937.

blues guitar player and singer Mel Brown, was born on October 7, 1939 in Jackson, Mississippi. He is best remembered for his decade-long backing of Bobby Bland, although in his own right, Brown recorded over a dozen albums between 1967 and 2006. Mel Brown was presented with his first guitar as a teenager while recovering from a bout of meningitis. By 1955, after performing backing duties for both Sonny Boy Williamson II and Jimmy Beasley, Brown had a two-year long stint backing Johnny Otis. This led to work with Etta James, where he swapped his Gibson Les Paul for an ES-175 to give him a richer and fuller tone to his guitar work, that set him apart from his contemporaries.

Blues musician and instrument maker Lonnie Pitchford was born October 8, 1955.  He was notable in that he was one of only a handful of young African American musicians from Mississippi who had learned and was continuing the Delta blues and country blues traditions of the older generations. In addition to the acoustic and electric guitar, Pitchford was also skilled on the diddley bow, a one-string instrument of African origin, as well as the double bass, piano and harmonica. He was a protégé of Robert Lockwood Jr., from whom he learned the style of Robert Johnson.

On October 8, 1969 BB King recorded "The Thrill is Gone" and is often considered the record that crossed B.B. King over into the pop market. While he had other entries in the pop charts dating back to 1957, no B.B. record had reached the pop chart peak of 'The Thrill is Gone,'. It's success boosted King to another level of the entertainment industry, as he soon became a familiar face on television and in concert halls around the world.

electric blues guitar player Johnnie Bassett was born on October 9 in 1935. He grew up with blues music all around him in his native Florida. His unique ability to combine jump blues and Delta stylings gave his playing a distinctive sound. The self-taught guitarist recalled seeing Tampa Red , Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup , and other classic blues artists at fish fries in his grandmother’s backyard. After Bassett’s family moved to Detroit in 1944, he made his debut as a guitarist with Joe Weaver & the Bluenotes, a teenage R&B band. The group won local talent contests and was hired to back up Big Joe Turner, Ruth Brown, and others on their tour stops in Detroit.

Blues singer Ivory Joe Hunter was born October 10, 1914. He was billed as The Baron of the Boogie, and also known as The Happiest Man Alive. Hunter was a prolific songwriter, and some estimate he wrote more than 7,000 songs. His musical output ranged from R&B to blues, boogie-woogie, and country music. Uniquely, he was honored at both the Monterey Jazz Festival and the Grand Ole Opry.

Bluesman and local civil rights leader Wade Walton was born October 10, 1919. His fame comes from his barbershop and he counted many famous musicians amongst his friends, colleagues, and customers. Walton played in the Kings of Rhythm with Ike Turner, but stayed in Clarksdale, Mississippi working as a barber when Turner took the group national. Many musicians and other notable people patronized Walton's barber shop to play music with him or in homage, including Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Sonny Boy Williamson II, and Allen Ginsberg.

Delta blues singer and guitar player "Mississippi" Joe Callicott was born October 10, 1899 in Nesbit, Mississippi. Although his early recording career resulted in only two songs issued in 1930, Joe Callicott is often regarded as one of Mississippi’s finest early bluesmen. His guitar work was also featured with local bluesman Garfield Akers on Cottonfield Blues, a classic 1929 single that illustrated how blues developed from field hollers. In the late 1960s Callicott recorded more extensively for folklorists and served as mentor to Nesbit guitarist Kenny Brown.

Harmonica Frank was born on October 11, 1908 in Toccopola, Mississippi. He was the son of itinerant parents who separated without giving him a name. He was raised by his sharecropping grandparents, who died while he was a teenager. He taught himself to play harmonica when he was 10 years old, and he eventually learned guitar. He gave himself the name Frank Floyd, and began performing in the 1920s for traveling carnivals and medicine shows

Before we wrap things up, we have some new music to tell you about. This is a release from Delmark Records. Chicago legend Jimmy Burns teamed up with Chris Foreman's Soul Message Band. The result is a 10 track album titles “Full Circle. In it, Jimmy Burns re-visits some of his 60's Chicago soul songs he recorded as 45s for a variety of labels.  It’s a very nice concept album that includes not only music from the start of his career, but also some of his personal favorites. Another new release is The Zac Schulze Gang on Germany’s Ruf Records titled “Straight To It”. If you haven’t heard them, they are a guitar centric power trio that’s put plenty of time on the road, but also on some big festival stages as well. It’s available digitally, and physical copies will be available in Europe and the US at different time over the next few months. Go to Ruf Records website for all the details.

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 Delta blues guitarist "Big Joe" Williams and Mississippi hill country blues guitarist and singer Jessie Mae Hemphill. It’s going to be a great show so… we’ll see you then!