“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…
Before Muddy (Waters), before Buddy (Guy), before even Howlin’ Wolf, there was a white kid from Chicago’s outer suburbs recording electric blues guitar in the Windy City. His name was George Barnes and he was almost certainly the second guitarist ever to record electric blues commercially. And judging from the number of instruction manuals he brought out in…
BLUESMUSE18 Johann Graupner The world’s first public performance of African-American-influenced music most probably occurred at the Federal Street Theatre, Boston, in 1799, but not quite in the manner the time-worn myth or Wikipedia portrays. According to popular legend, one of the era’s leading classical musicians, the German oboist, Johann Christian Gottlieb Graupner, is said to…
BluesMuse17 Check out the Sister’s original 1944 recording below http://www.aintnothinbut.com/strange-things-happening-everyday-sister-rosetta-tharpe/ Sister Rosetta Tharpe Big Boy Crudup drops to number five in my ‘Earliest Rock & Roll Releases’ list (below) because America’s original soul sister has taken his spot. Sister Rosetta Tharpe recorded the rocking, ‘Strange Things Happen Every Day’, with Decca’s house band in New…
