Updated August 6th 2019. A couple of posts ago (three years now, actually) I featured the mysterious Delta Blues photographer who goes only by the name Shein Die. Mr or Ms Die alerted me to a branch of blues called Bentonia Blues, named after the town of Bentonia in Mississippi. “It was started by Henry…
Blues on the cusp of rock ‘n’ roll This final Original Chicago Blues film, above, opens on a 1952 electric version of Washboard Sam’s classic ‘Digging My Potatoes’ featuring the superb lead guitar work of Lee Cooper. To read more about Lee Cooper please visit this earlier post below. https://paulmerryblues.com/2014/06/lee-cooper-blast-of-electric-blues.html Then we move…
Oh, the presumption of youth! I recently came across some old press cuttings, including a page written way back in March 1970. That’s exactly 46 years ago. Nearly half a century! As you can see from the photograph, I was but a child. I was pontificating on the state of rock music in England in…
The JKL Index to AMERICA’S Gift: The untold story of how blues evolved. I welcome any excuse to include a photograph of the great Lonnie Johnson. This shot must have been taken around 1925. Check those spats. According to the index of AMERICA’S Gift, Johnson is the blues’ most common surname, with King next (although two of these…
Updated 20th September 2018 To us unbelievers, he was certainly NOT the devil. So, who really taught the blues guitar to Robert Johnson down at the crossroads? It wasn’t the devil, of course, but a certain Mr. Zimmerman. No, no, not Robert Zimmerman (Bob Dylan to us), but an African-American Mr. Zimmerman: Ike Zimmerman. I wonder if Bob knows…
