UPDATED JULY 17 2016 In my book ‘America’s Gift’, I quote the American Blues historian, David K. Bradford, writing about the nineteenth century African-American street evangelist, Charles Haffer. Born in the 1870s, Charles Haffer was a blind Delta balladeer and songwriter from Mississippi who astutely linked the emergence of blues to the guitar’s new popularity among black musicians…

Updated 20 July 2016 St. Louis’ famous Gateway Arch is 630 ft. or 190 m high. In the nineteenth century, St. Louis used to be called The Gateway to the West St. Louis, Missouri, is a city so steeped in the blues, even the local NHL ice hockey team calls itself after one of the most famous…

Updated 28 July 2016. “Your blog was brilliantly written and very informative! :)” Brenhda Greenwood   @BrenhdaG    New Orleans, 2 Jan 2015 You may have read my ‘Top Ten Rock & Roll Records Preceding Rock & Roll’ post from August 2013. Far from being Ike Turner’s ‘Rocket 88’ in 1951, as Ike’s (albeit revolutionary) producer…

UPDATED 30 JULY 2016. You know Oscar Wilde*, Marty Wilde** and Kim Wilde***. Now meet Carlos Wilde. It’s not often you associate any decent rock, blues or even credible pop music with the Iberian Peninsula, that part of western Europe encompassing Spain, Portugal, Andorra, Gibraltar and some of southern France. In all of my time listening to music I…

Updated 29 July 2016. Grohl’s Sound City doco climaxes with Paul McCartney/Nirvana collaboration It’s taken a while, but I finally got around to watching Dave Grohl’s 2013 documentary on the unlikely Los Angeles recording studio, Sound City. I started watching it early last year but found the first ten minutes so boring I gave up. Shots of a…