Since we’re on the topic of Austin-based acts, why not shift our focus to one of the most acclaimed and yet most elusive since the death of Stevie Ray Vaughan? I’m talking of course about the Arcangels. It would be impossible to discuss the Arcangels without a discussing their sometimes-volatileRead More

by S. Victor Aaron 2009 has had its share of the blues but there were plenty of blues practitioners making the best of the hard times, as we saw a slew of fine releases by them last year. There were seven of those that really stood out to me, aboveRead More

Otis Taylor might very well be the greatest bluesman of the 21st century. Not the best blues-rocker, not the best Delta bluesman or soul-bluesman; just the best straight-up bluesman. That’s because when I listen to any Taylor record, I hear strong echoes of the Delta blues, while detecting a restlessRead More

by Nick DeRiso An honorable, if ultimately somewhat superficial, tribute to the thing that makes Robert “Jr.” Lockwood such an important element to modern blues. Lockwood was something of a stepson to Robert Johnson. The doomed Delta bluesman would stop in to stay with Lockwood’s mother in Helena, Ark., duringRead More

by Pico This site had its beginnings, believe or not, as a blues-oriented site. These days we’re ten times more likely to cover jazz than we are the Blues, but there’s nonetheless twenty-three entries in the Blues category so far this year. We’ve covered everything from soul-blues and blues-rock newRead More

Refined, yet deliciously groovy, 72-year-old Johnnie Bassett’s music — and his bearing — belies his family’s rascally bootlegger roots. It’s perhaps no surprise, though, that many of the more well-known Florida-area bluesmen of the Prohibition era — Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup, Lonnie Johnson, Tampa Red — would stop by toRead More

Koko Taylor, a sharecropper’s daughter, crafted a five-decade hall of fame career that eventually earned her the nickname “Queen of the Blues.”

by Nick DeRiso  This is an updated excerpt from a multi-artist piece I had published as part of the statewide Louisiana Folklife Festival’s program book in 1995. Born in 1904, Thomas Edison “Brownie” Ford would travel all over the Deep South — working as a ballad singer, bronc buster, storytellerRead More

This is an updated excerpt from a multi-artist piece I had published as part of the statewide Louisiana Folklife Festival’s program book in 1995. Thomas suffered a fatal heart attack later that same year, in his hometown of Shreveport, La., ending a career that spanned seven decades: On his oldRead More

Irma Thomas, whose Louisiana legend of a voice has darkened into a more expressive place, is taking a similar career tack. The new “Simply Grand,” in fact, finds Thomas moving deeper into the emotional underpinnings of her best work at a time when safer environs would probably be more profitable.Read More