Blues broadcasts garnished with blues and rock history. Every Mon, Wed & Sat.

Admittedly, it wasn’t a good review, but one of the earliest descriptions of the wild pre-blues African-American-style music heard in London during 1890 came from no less a source than the celebrated Irish playwright, George Bernard Shaw. The photograph below was taken around the time Shaw wrote his damning account of being forced to listen…

UK’s music venues down on their knees Just as I finished Dave Haslem’s entertaining new book, Life After Dark, A History of British Nightclubs and Music Venues, I read that the UK music venue and nightclub industry is on its knees. Almost half have closed in the last ten years, say the newspapers. Some 3,144 venues offered late…

Updated 27 May 2016 Remembering AC/DC’s London concert at Wembley last July. Angus Young in action at Wembley last year. Jim Dyson/Getty Images Two of my most popular posts when I wrote this article last year were about veteran Australian-British band AC/DC. (This was as rated by Google Blogger, but I am now at paulmerryblues.com, which doesn’t have…

Updated 31 May 2016 Robert Johnson, immaculately-dressed, like all bluesmen back then Robert Johnson was the unluckiest of blues performers. As with other giant talents, ranging from Vincent Van Gogh and Franz Kafka to Galileo and Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Johnson became revered only after his death. That he’s known at all is probably due to the appreciation of Johnson’s…

At last! It’s only taken me 10 attempts to upload this video onto YouTube over the last two days. YouTube!  What are you playing at? But finally, the Original Chicago Blues Part Three is up. You’ve got to be dedicated to persevere as a blues hound, haven’t you? This film pinpoints a moment when blues…