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Ken Saydak
Ken Saydak (born Chicago, Illinois, United States) is an American Chicago blues pianist and singer-songwriter. In a long career, he has played as a sideman with Lonnie Brooks, Mighty Joe Young, Johnny Winter and Dave Specter. Saydak has released three albums under his own name since 1999. ''Billboard'' once described him as "a gripping frontman". Biography During the 1980s, Saydak played on tours and albums by Johnny Winter, including Winter's Grammy Award nominated LP, '' Guitar Slinger''. Following this spell, Saydak became one of the members of the blues rock band, Big Shoulders, who issued two albums (produced by Saydak) before disbanding. His debut solo album was 1999's ''Foolish Man'' released on Delmark Records. Saydak has also produced his own albums, as well as Zora Young's 2000 issue, ''Learned My Lesson''. He has now appeared on over fifty albums. The ''Chicago Sun Times'' reported "Ken Saydak has built an impressive body of work with his three solo albums and his ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the African-American culture. The blues form is ubiquitous in jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock and roll, and is characterized by the call-and-response pattern (the blues scale and specific chord progressions) of which the twelve-bar blues is the most common. Blue notes (or "worried notes"), usually thirds, fifths or sevenths flattened in pitch, are also an essential part of the sound. Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce the trance-like rhythm and form a repetitive effect known as the groove. Blues as a genre is also characterized by its lyrics, bass lines, and instrumentation. Early traditional blues verses consisted of a single line repeated four times. It was only in the first decades of the 20th century that the most common current str ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chicago Sun Times
The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the ''Chicago Tribune''. The modern paper grew out of the 1948 merger of the ''Chicago Sun'' and the ''Chicago Daily Times''. Journalists at the paper have received eight Pulitzer prizes, mostly in the 1970s; one recipient was film critic Roger Ebert (1975), who worked at the paper from 1967 until his death in 2013. Long owned by the Marshall Field family, since the 1980s ownership of the paper has changed hands numerous times, including twice in the late 2010s. History The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' claims to be the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city. That claim is based on the 1844 founding of the ''Chicago Daily Journal'', which was also the first newspaper to publish the rumor, now believed false, that a cow owned by Catherine O'Le ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bob Stroger
Bob Stroger (born December 27, 1930) is an American electric blues bass guitarist, singer and songwriter. He has worked with many blues musicians, including Eddie King, Otis Rush, Jimmy Rogers, Eddie Taylor, Eddy Clearwater, Sunnyland Slim, Louisiana Red, Buster Benton, Homesick James, Mississippi Heat, Snooky Pryor, Odie Payne, Fred Below, Willie "Big Eyes" Smith, and Billy Davenport. In 2011 and 2013, Stroger was granted a Blues Music Award as Best Blues Bassist. Life and career Stroger was born on a farm outside of Hayti, Missouri. In 1955, at the age of 16, he relocated with his family to Chicago, Illinois. His family settled on the West Side, in an apartment in back of Silvio's nightclub. Stroger was inspired by the sights and sounds from the club. He was further encouraged to try for a career in music, after being employed driving his brother-in-law to play in a blues band with J. B. Hutto. A self-taught guitarist, he formed a family-based band, the Red Tops (the band ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Koko Taylor
Koko Taylor (born Cora Anna Walton, September 28, 1928 – June 3, 2009) was an American singer whose style encompassed Chicago blues, electric blues, rhythm and blues and soul blues. Sometimes called "The Queen of the Blues", she was known for her rough, powerful vocals. Life and career Born on a farm near Memphis, Tennessee, Taylor was the daughter of a sharecropper. She left Tennessee for Chicago in 1952 with her husband, Robert "Pops" Taylor, a truck driver. In the late 1950s, she began singing in blues clubs in Chicago. She was spotted by Willie Dixon in 1962, and this led to more opportunities for performing and her first recordings. In 1963 she had a single on USA Records, and in 1964 a cut on a Chicago blues collection on Spivey Records, called ''Chicago Blues''. In 1964 Dixon brought Taylor to Checker Records, a subsidiary label of Chess Records, for which she recorded "Wang Dang Doodle", a song written by Dixon and recorded by Howlin' Wolf five years earlier. The re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Primer
John Primer (born March 5, 1945, Camden, Mississippi, United States) is an American Chicago blues and electric blues singer and guitarist who played behind Junior Wells in the house band at Theresa's Lounge and as a member of the bands of Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters and Magic Slim before launching an award-winning career as a front man, carrying forward the traditional Windy City sound into the 21st century. Biography Childhood Born into a family of Mississippi sharecroppers, Primer grew up imbued with a strong work ethic from his forebears and in a farming community that was deeply involved in the blues tradition, singing work songs in the field during the week and spirituals in church on Sundays. Living on the Mansell Plantation in rural Madison County, he lived in a shack with no running water and a leaking roof with his large, extended family. He shared a bed with cousins, and lost his father at age 22 after a truck accident when he was four years old. He fell in love wit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lurrie Bell
Lurrie Bell (born Lurrie C. Bell, December 13, 1958, Chicago, Illinois, United States) is an American blues guitarist and singer. His father was renowned blues harmonica player Carey Bell. Career Bell started playing guitar at the age of six, and in his teens he polished his skills playing with the legends of Chicago blues scene including Eddy Clearwater, Big Walter Horton and Eddie Taylor. In the mid 1970s, he went on to join Koko Taylor's Blues Machine and he toured with the band for four years. He made his recording debut in 1977 appearing on his father's album ''Heartaches and Pain'' and also on Eddie C. Campbell's ''King of the Jungle''. It was around that time that he formed The Sons of Blues with musicians including |
Johnny B
Johnny B may refer to: * "Johnny B" (song), song by The Hooters * Jonathon Brandmeier (born 1956), American radio personality and musician known as Johnny B See also * ''Johnny Be Good ''Johnny Be Good'' is a 1988 American comedy film directed by Bud S. Smith, starring Anthony Michael Hall as the main character, Johnny Walker. The film also features Robert Downey Jr., Paul Gleason, Steve James, Jennifer Tilly and Uma Thurman. ...'', 1988 American comedy film directed by Bud Smith * " Johnny B. Goode", 1958 rock-and-roll song written and first recorded by Chuck Berry and covered intensively {{disambiguation ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Willie Kent
Willie Kent (February 24, 1936 – March 2, 2006) was an American Chicago blues singer, bassist and songwriter. Career Kent was born in Inverness, Sunflower County, Mississippi. Although he had played the bass guitar in Chicago's clubs since the 1950s, Kent worked full-time in careers other than music until he was over 50 years of age. Following heart surgery, he stopped work as a truck driver, and formed a band. In 1971, Kent took up residence at Ma Bea's Lounge in West Madison, Chicago. The house band became known as Sugar Bear and the Beehives, headed by Kent (the Sugar Bear) with guitarist Willie James Lyons and drummer Robert Plunkett. For the next six years, this troupe backed visiting musicians, such as Fenton Robinson, Hubert Sumlin, Eddy Clearwater, Jimmy Johnson, Carey Bell, Buster Benton, John Littlejohn, Casey Jones, and Mighty Joe Young. The house band's proficient playing led to their recording a live album in October 1975 at Ma Bea's, billed as ''Ghetto''. Kent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bonnie Lee
Bonnie Lee (June 11, 1931 – September 7, 2006) was an American Chicago blues singer known as "The Sweetheart of the Blues". She is best remembered for her lengthy working relationships with Sunnyland Slim and Willie Kent. David Whiteis, who interviewed Lee in researching his book ''Chicago Blues: Portraits and Stories'', stated, "she was one of the last of her genre, the big-voiced woman blues singer fronting a Chicago band." Biography She was born Jessie Lee Frealls in Bunkie, Louisiana, and raised in Beaumont, Texas. She learned to play the piano as a child. Her mother refused to let her join the gospel singer Lillian Glinn on tour. She later toured with the Famous Georgia Minstrels, meeting Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown and Big Mama Thornton. In 1958 she moved to Chicago and chose the stage name Bonnie Lee, working as both a dancer and singer. Two years later she signed a recording contract with J. Mayo Williams's Ebony Records. Williams insisted on billing her as Bonnie "Bo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Karen Carroll
Karen Lynn Carroll (January 30, 1958 – March 9, 2016) was an American blues singer. She was born to Mack Carroll and Alberta Simmons Carroll (stage name Jeanne Carroll). Her godparents were the jazz guitarist George Freeman and the blues vocalist Bonnie Lee. Biography Born in Chicago, Carroll started singing in church at the age of six. In her first appearance on stage, she played guitar with her mother's band at age 14. Early in her career she worked with Katie Webster and Albert King. She recorded her first song with Carey Bell on his album ''Son of a Gun'' in 1983. Carroll went on to tour with Professor Eddie Lusk in Canada after performing on his album ''Professor Strut'' in 1989. She went on to play in prominent Chicago blues clubs. In 1995, she contributed to an album with five other female blues artists, entitled ''Women of Blue Chicago''; which is still played on the radio today. She was offered a recording contract by Delmark Records in 1995, subsequently mak ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tad Robinson
Tad Robinson (born June 24, 1956) is an American singer, harmonica player, and songwriter. Robinson was born and raised in New York City. He graduated the New Lincoln School and attended Indiana University's school of music and graduating in 1980. He played regionally with a group called the Hesitation Blues Band, then moved to Chicago, where he became the vocalist for Dave Specter & the Bluebirds, singing on their 1994 album ''Blueplicity'' for Delmark Records. In 1994, he released his first album under his own name on the same label; seven more have followed, five on the Severn imprint. Robinson has performed at notable festivals in several countries, including the United States, Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. He has been a Hohner harmonica endorsee since 1985. Discography Solo *''One to Infinity'' (Delmark Records, 1994) *''Last Go Round'' (Delmark Records, 1998) *''Did You Ever Wonder?'' (Severn Records, 2004) *''A New Point of View'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barkin' Bill Smith
Barkin' Bill Smith (August 18, 1928 – April 24, 2000) was an American Chicago blues and electric blues singer and songwriter. He was born in Cleveland, Mississippi, and in his latter years lived in Chicago. Biography Smith was raised in Mississippi and later relocated to East St. Louis, Detroit and finally Chicago. He obtained his stage name from Homesick James in 1958, after the pair had worked together. Smith sang in front of various blues bands around Chicago for many years. He was initially influenced by Joe Williams, Jimmy Witherspoon and Brook Benton. He made his recording debut in 1991, singing on Dave Specter's first album, ''Bluebird Blues''. Delmark Records issued Smith's solo debut album, ''Gotcha!'', in 1994, with Steve Freund playing guitar. In his latter years declining health restricted his live appearances. Smith died of pancreatic cancer in Chicago in April 2000, at the age of 71. Solo album discography *''Gotcha!'' (1994), Delmark See also *List of C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
