Blues Time Machine

KNKX blues host John Kessler shares his Best of the Blues list from the past year. Read more about his favorite songs from 2020 (and check out some…

Muddy Waters was born in rural Mississippi, and learned his blues at the feet of Son House and Robert Johnson.By the 1940’s he took that delta blues to…

Earl King is one of the great songwriters and performers to come out of New Orleans, and his legacy continues to live on. Many of his compositions,…

The urban blues of places like Detroit and Chicago came from country blues. Little Son Joe and his better known partner Memphis Minnie were among the…

Stevie Ray Vaughan almost single-handedly brought blues to the mainstream in the 1980’s and 90’s with over a dozen Billboard singles and four Grammy…

Chances are you’ve heard Peggy Lee’s iconic version of “Fever”– it’s one of the steamiest love songs ever written. But the original recording was released…

“Sweet Home Chicago” is one of the best known blues songs ever written. But historians seem to agree that when Robert Johnson recorded the song in 1936,…

Here’s a perfect example of a song that changed with the times, and was at the cutting edge of those changes.Drummer and singer Rabon Tarrant recorded…

If I had to pick one person to represent Delta blues at the peak of its expression, it would be Robert Johnson.Saying that he was a superlative guitar…

Sonny Boy Williamson was a blues originator who helped shape the sound of modern blues. In his life, he knew the first generation of Delta bluesmen, and…