How I remember the Stones UPDATED SEPTEMBER 12 2016 I’ve been around the block so often, it only cost me 7/6 (about 37p or 50c) to watch the original Rolling Stones play in the local cinema. I say watch because, except for Little Red Rooster, (it was 1964, I was but a boy), you couldn’t hear any songs…

Sorry to impose a plug for my new book on you here, folks, but it’s finally available on the Amazon links below and I can’t contain my excitement. Getting all those old blues photographs and illustrations, many of them quite rare, into Kindle format, has been like trying to stuff an elephant into a mouse…

BLUESMUSE22. TAKE A LISTEN ON THE LINK BELOW Updated and reformatted March 31st 2017 Chuck Berry (God bless him) is one of the finest lyricists known to rock & roll. Chuck also plays inimitable, dynamic, guitar-driven old-school rhythm & blues. Except Chuck’s style isn’t quite that inimitable. That’s because, in April 1949, sounding very much like the Chuck Berry…

“He (Lonnie) certainly had a presence: the blog points are well considered. Sadly, his grace and subtlety marginalized him.” @steviegurr May 19, 2015, California. “Thank you, Paul. I enjoyed reading the writing on Lonnie Johnson you wrote. I agree he and Big Bill get overlooked.” bryanhimes @bryanhimes June 20, 2013. While I can’t agree with the blues historians…

Updated 7 June 2016 This was the first post where I was searching for the earliest rocking blues songs – songs that could be considered rock & roll as well as blues. I finally found 20 songs of this type that I have included in my book, America’s Gift. Here are my first six from…