Bman's Blues Report

Jan Bradley (born Addie Bradley, July 6, 1943 in Byhalia, Mississippi) is an American soul singer. Bradley grew up in Robbins, Illinois. She was noticed by manager Don Talty (who also managed Phil Upchurch) at a high school talent show. After graduating, she auditioned for Curtis Mayfield, and soon recorded the Mayfield-penned "We Girls", which became a hit regionally in the Midwest (on Talty's Formal Records label). Several singles followed, and another Mayfield song, "Mama Didn't Lie" (b/w "Lovers Like Me"), was released nationally in the U.S. by Chess Records in 1963 and hit #8 R&B and #14 on the Billboard Hot 100. Following the single's success, Mayfield and Chess got into a legal battle over the publishing rights to Mayfield's songs, and as a result Bradley was no longer able to work with him. She started writing her own songs and released several further singles on Chess. "I'm Over You" hit #24 R&B in 1965; o...

Junior Wells (December 9, 1934 – January 15, 1998), born Amos Wells Blakemore Jr., was an American Chicago blues vocalist, harmonica player, and recording artist. Wells, who was best known for his performances and recordings with Muddy Waters, Earl Hooker, and Buddy Guy, also performed with Bonnie Raitt, The Rolling Stones, and Van Morrison Junior Wells was born in Memphis, Tennessee, United States, and raised in West Memphis, Arkansas, though other sources report that his birth was in West Memphis. Initially taught by his cousin, Junior Parker, and Sonny Boy Williamson II, Wells learned how to play the harmonica by the age of seven with surprising skill. He moved to Chicago in 1948 with his mother after her divorce and began sitting in with local musicians at house parties and taverns. Wild and rebellious but needing an outlet for his talents, he began performing with The Aces (guitarist brothers Dave and Louis Myers and drummer Fred Below) and developed a more modern amplified harm...

For more information visit www.blindpigrecords.com . CASH BOX KINGS #1 ON LIVING BLUES CHART TOO! The Cash Box Kings cashed in on a parlay with the announcement that their new release, Holler and Stomp, debuted at #1 on the Living Blues radio chart for November. This follows news that the album was also #1 on this week's Roots Music Report blues chart. Both charts are determined by radio airplay as reported by blues programmers around the world. http://mailman.305spin.com/users/blindpigrecords/images/CBKcoveremail.jpg That blues radio is embracing the album is not surprising considering that the recording authentically captures the sound and spirit of vintage Chicago blues and rockabilly sides from the Chess and Sun Records labels. In its review, the Chicago Blues Guide said, "Holler and Stomp is easily one of the best sounding recordings in ages...it has all of the atmosphere and warmth of your favorite vintage blues recordings without the scratches ...

CASH BOX KINGS #1 ON BLUES RADIO CHART! "Holler and Stomp," the new release from The Cash Box Kings is #1 on this week's blues chart issued by the Roots Music Report. The chart is compiled from airplay reports from radio stations around the globe, including XM Sirius satellite radio and syndicated shows such as the House of Blues Radio Hour. Upon hearing the news that it was the most-played album on blues radio, bandleader Joe Nosek said, "That's awesome! It's a good album, so it's great that everyone is digging it, especially the cool angle that it's a throwback to the sounds of Chess and Sun Records, combining the best of blues and rockabilly." Radio programmers are not the only ones appreciating one of the freshest and most distinctive blues records in recent memory. Vintage Guitar said, "When it's as good as it is here, it's all one can do to refrain from doing just what the album title suggests." Living...

SONNY BOY WILLIAMSON II aka RICE MILLER - Born Dec 5, 1899, lower Tallahatchie County near Glendora, MS, Died May 25, 1965, Helena, AK. He claimed to fans and Blues researchers that he was the original 'Sonny Boy' (John Lee Williamson) who came from Jackson, Tennessee and recorded for Bluebird and later RCA Victor until his untimely death at the hands of an assailant on a Chicago street in the late 1940's. But according to his sister, Mary Ashford of Tutwiler, his real name was Alex 'Rice' Miller. "He was born a Miller and his father's name was Miller" she says of her musician brother who died in Helena, AK, 1965 of failed health. Born as Alex Miller (pronounced "Aleck") on the Sara Jones Plantation in Tallahatchie County, Mississippi, his date and year of birth are a matter of uncertainty. He claimed to have been born on December 5, 1899, but Dr. David Evans, professor of music and an ethnomusicologist at the University of Memphis, claims t...

Robert Lee McCollum (November 30, 1909 – November 5, 1967) was an American blues musician who played and recorded under the pseudonyms Robert Lee McCoy and Robert Nighthawk. Born in Helena, Arkansas, he left home at an early age to become a busking musician, and after a period wandering through southern Mississippi, settled for a time in Memphis, Tennessee where he played with local orchestras and musicians, such as the Memphis Jug Band. A particular influence during this period was Houston Stackhouse, from whom he learnt to play slide guitar, and with whom he appeared on the radio in Jackson, Mississippi. After further travels through Mississippi, he found it advisable to take his mother's name, and as Robert Lee McCoy moved to St. Louis, Missouri in the mid 1930s. Local musicians with whom he played included Henry Townsend, Big Joe Williams, and Sonny Boy Williamson. This led to two recording dates in 1937, the four musicians recording together at the Victor Records studio in...

The Hipo-Select label has just issued a limited edition, 4 CD collection by the great Howlin Wolf titled Smokestack Lightnin'; The Complete Chess Masters (1951 to 1960). Howlin Wolf was among the greatest blues singers who ever lived! His classics include, "Sittin On Top Of The World", "Smokestack Lighnin", "I Aint Superstitious", "Killing Floor", and many others. To find out more about this amazing release, and see a complete track listing. “Like” Bman and get support for your favorite band or venue - click HERE

Charles Edward Anderson "Chuck" Berry (born October 18, 1926) is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter, and one of the pioneers of rock and roll music. With songs such as "Maybellene" (1955), "Roll Over Beethoven" (1956), "Rock and Roll Music" (1957) and "Johnny B. Goode" (1958), Chuck Berry refined and developed rhythm and blues into the major elements that made rock and roll distinctive, with lyrics focusing on teen life and consumerism and utilizing guitar solos and showmanship that would be a major influence on subsequent rock music. Born into a middle class family in St. Louis, Missouri, Berry had an interest in music from an early age and gave his first public performance at Sumner High School. While still a high school student he served a prison sentence for armed robbery between 1944 and 1947. On his release, Berry settled into married life and worked at an automobile assembly plant. By early 1953, influenced by the gu...

Sugar Pie DeSanto (born Umpeylia Marsema Balinton, October 16, 1935, Brooklyn, New York, United States) is an American rhythm and blues singer of the 1950s and 1960s. She was born to an African American mother and Filipino father. Her mother was a concert pianist. She spent most of her early life in San Francisco, California, where she moved with her family at a young age. She is 4' 11". As a girl she was friends with Etta James. In 1955, DeSanto did some touring with The Johnny Otis Revue. Otis gave her her stage name. From 1959 to 1960, she toured with The James Brown Revue. In 1960, DeSanto rose to national prominence when her single "I Want to Know" reached number four on Billboard's Hot R&B chart. She recorded the song with her husband Pee Wee Kingsley. Soon thereafter her marriage to Kingsley fell apart, and DeSanto moved to Chicago and signed with Chess Records in 1962 as a recording artist and writer. Among her recordings at Chess were "Slip...

Otis Rush (born April 29, 1935 in Philadelphia, Mississippi) is a blues musician, singer and guitarist. His distinctive guitar style features a slow burning sound and long bent notes. With similar qualities to Magic Sam and Buddy Guy, his sound became known as West Side Chicago blues and became an influence on many musicians including Michael Bloomfield and Eric Clapton. Rush is left-handed and, unlike many other left-handed guitarists, plays a left-handed instrument strung upside-down with the low E string at the bottom. He played often with the little finger of his pick hand curled under the low E for positioning. It is widely believed that this contributes to his distinctive sound. Other guitarists who restrung upside down include Albert King, Doyle Bramhall II, and Dick Dale. He has a wide-ranging, powerful tenor voice. After moving to Chicago, Illinois in 1948, Rush made a name for himself playing in clubs on both the South Side and West Side blues scenes. From 1956 to 1958, h...

Koko Taylor sometimes spelled KoKo Taylor (September 28, 1928 – June 3, 2009) was an American Chicago blues musician, popularly known as the "Queen of the Blues." She was known primarily for her rough, powerful vocals and traditional blues stylings. Born Cora Walton in Shelby County, Tennessee, Taylor was the daughter of a sharecropper. She left Memphis for Chicago, Illinois in 1952 with her husband, truck driver Robert "Pops" Taylor. In the late 1950s she began singing in Chicago blues clubs. She was spotted by Willie Dixon in 1962, and this led to wider performances and her first recording contract. In 1965, Taylor was signed by Chess Records where she recorded "Wang Dang Doodle," a song written by Dixon and recorded by Howlin' Wolf five years earlier. The song became a hit, reaching number four on the R&B charts in 1966, and selling a million copies. Taylor recorded several versions of "Wang Dang Doodle" over the years, including a l...

Billy Boy Arnold (born William Arnold, September 16, 1935, Chicago, Illinois) is an American blues harmonica player, singer and songwriter. Born in Chicago, he began playing harmonica as a child, and in 1948 received informal lessons from his near neighbour John Lee "Sonny Boy" Williamson, shortly before the latter's death. Arnold made his recording debut in 1952 with "Hello Stranger" on the small Cool label, the record company giving him the nickname "Billy Boy". In the early 1950s, he joined forces with street musician Bo Diddley and played harmonica on the March 2, 1955 recording of the Bo Diddley song "I'm a Man" released by Checker Records.[1] The same day as the Bo Diddley sessions, Billy Boy recorded the self-penned "You Got to Love Me" which was not released until the box set, Chess Blues 1947-1967, in 1992. Arnold signed a solo recording contract with Vee-Jay Records, recording the originals of "I Wish You Wo...

James Milton Campbell, Jr. (September 7, 1934 – August 4, 2005), better known as Little Milton, was an American electric blues, rhythm and blues, and soul singer and guitarist, best known for his hit records "Grits Ain't Groceries" and "We're Gonna Make It." Milton was born James Milton Campbell, Jr., in the Mississippi Delta town of Inverness and raised in Greenville by a farmer and local blues musician. By age twelve he had learned the guitar and was a street musician, chiefly influenced by T-Bone Walker and his blues and rock and roll contemporaries. In 1952, while still a teenager playing in local bars, he caught the attention of Ike Turner, who was at that time a talent scout for Sam Phillips' Sun Records. He signed a contract with the label and recorded a number of singles. None of them broke through onto radio or sold well at record stores, however, and Milton left the Sun label by 1955. After trying several labels without notable success, inc...

Memphis Slim (September 3, 1915 – February 24, 1988) was an American blues pianist, singer, and composer. He led a series of bands that, reflecting the popular appeal of jump blues, included saxophones, bass, drums, and piano. A song he first cut in 1947, "Every Day I Have the Blues", has become a blues standard, recorded by many other artists. He made over 500 recordings. Memphis Slim's birth name was John Len Chatman, and he was born in Memphis, Tennessee, United States. His father Peter Chatman sang, played piano and guitar, and operated juke joints, and it is now commonly believed that he took the name to honor his father when he first recorded for Okeh Records in 1940. Although he started performing under the name Memphis Slim later that same year, he continued to publish songs under the name Peter Chatman. He spent most of the 1930s performing in honky-tonks, dance halls, and gambling joints in West Memphis, Arkansas, and southeast Missouri. He settled in Chicag...