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Bobby Rush (musician)
Bobby Rush (born Emmett Ellis Jr. in Homer, Louisiana on November 10, 1933) is an American blues musician, composer, record producer, and singer. His style incorporates elements of blues, rap, and funk, as well as a comic sense about blues tropes. Rush has won twelve Blues Music Awards and in 2017, at the age of 83, he won his first Grammy Award for the album ''Porcupine Meat''. He is inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame, Mississippi Musicians Hall of Fame, and Rhythm & Blues Music Hall of Fame. Life and career Rush is the son of Emmett and Mattie Ellis. His father was a pastor whose guitar and harmonica playing provided early musical influences. As a young child he began experimenting with music using a sugarcane syrup bucket and a broom-wire diddley bow. Around 1947, he and the family moved to Pine Bluff, Arkansas, where his father took on the pastorate of a church and was a farmer. It was here that Rush would become friends with Elmore James, the slide player Boyd ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Homer, Louisiana
Homer is a town in and the County seat, parish seat of Claiborne Parish, Louisiana, Claiborne Parish in northern Louisiana, United States. Named for the Greece, Greek poet Homer, the town was laid out around the Courthouse Square in 1850 by Frank Vaughn. The present-day brick courthouse, built in the Greek Revival style of architecture, is one of only four pre-American Civil War, Civil War courthouses in Louisiana still in use. The building, completed in 1860, was accepted by the Claiborne Parish Police Jury on July 20, 1861, at a cost of $12,304.36, and is on the National Register of Historic Places. The other courthouses are in St. Francisville, Louisiana, St. Francisville, St. Martinville, Louisiana, St. Martinville and Thibodaux, Louisiana, Thibodaux. History File:Louisiana - Boyce through Kinder - NARA - 23940403 (cropped).jpg, Homer in 1935 The city was once the home of Homer College (also known as Homer Colored College), a private school for African American students ac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Diddley Bow
The diddley bow is a single-stringed American instrument which influenced the development of the blues sound. It consists of a single string of baling wire tensioned between two nails on a board over a glass bottle, which is used both as a bridge and as a means to amplify the instrument's sound. It was traditionally considered a starter or children's instrument in the Deep South, especially in the African American community, and is rarely heard outside the rural South. It may have been influenced to some degree by West African instruments. Other nicknames for this instrument include "jitterbug" or "one-string", while an ethnomusicologist would formally call it a "monochord zither". Origins The diddley bow derives from instruments used in the Sahel region of West Africa, in places such as northern Nigeria and Mali. There, they were often played by children, one beating the string with sticks and the other changing the pitch by moving a slide up and down. The instrument was then ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Vee Jay Records
Vee-Jay Records is an American record label founded in the 1950s, located in Chicago and specializing in blues, jazz, rhythm and blues and rock and roll. The label was founded in Gary, Indiana, in 1953 by Vivian Carter and James C. Bracken, a husband-and-wife team who used their initials for the label's name.Thompson, Dave (2002). ''A Music Lover's Guide to Record Collecting'', pp. 286-89. San Francisco: Backbeat Books. . Vivian's brother, Calvin Carter, was the label's A&R man. Ewart Abner, formerly of Chance Records, joined the label in 1955, first as manager, then as vice president, and ultimately as president. One of the earliest African American-owned record companies, Vee-Jay quickly became a major R&B label, with the first song recorded, the Spaniels' "Baby It's You," making it to the top ten on the national R&B charts. Artists Major acts on Vee-Jay in the 1950s included blues singers Jimmy Reed, Memphis Slim, and John Lee Hooker, and rhythm and blues vocal groups ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Howlin' Wolf
Chester Arthur Burnett (June 10, 1910January 10, 1976), better known by his stage name Howlin' Wolf, was an American blues singer, guitarist and harmonica player. He was at the forefront of transforming acoustic Delta blues into electric Chicago blues, and over a four-decade career, recorded blues, rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and psychedelic rock. He is regarded as one of the most influential blues musicians of all time. Born into poverty in Mississippi, Burnett became a protégé of Delta blues musician Charley Patton in the 1930s. In the Deep South, he began a solo career by performing with other notable blues musicians of the day. By the end of the decade, he had established himself in the Mississippi Delta. Following a number of legal issues, a stint in prison, and Army service, he was recruited by A&R man Ike Turner to record for producer Sam Phillips in Memphis. His first record "Moanin' at Midnight" (1951) led to a record deal with Chess Records in Chicago. Between ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Etta James
Jamesetta Hawkins (January 25, 1938 – January 20, 2012), known professionally as Etta James, was an American singer and songwriter. Starting her career in 1954, James frequently performed in Nashville's R&B clubs, collectively known as the Chitlin' Circuit, in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. She sang in various genres, including Gospel music, gospel, blues, jazz, Rhythm and blues, R&B, rock and roll and Soul music, soul and gained fame with hits such as "The Wallflower (Dance with Me, Henry), The Wallflower" (1955), "At Last" (1960), "Something's Got a Hold on Me" (1962), "Tell Mama (song), Tell Mama" and "I'd Rather Go Blind" (both 1967). She faced a number of personal problems, including Opioid use disorder, heroin addiction, severe physical abuse and Imprisonment, incarceration, before making a musical comeback in the late 1980s with the album ''Seven Year Itch (Etta James album), Seven Year Itch'' (1988). James's deep and earthy voice is considered to have bridged the gap betw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Jimmy Reed
Mathis James Reed (September 6, 1925 – August 29, 1976) was an American blues musician and songwriter. His particular style of electric blues was popular with a wide variety of audiences. Reed's songs such as "Honest I Do" (1957), "Baby What You Want Me to Do" (1960), "Big Boss Man (song), Big Boss Man" (1961), and "Bright Lights, Big City (song), Bright Lights, Big City" (1961) appeared on both Billboard (magazine), ''Billboard'' magazine's Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, R&B and Hot 100 singles charts. Reed influenced many other musicians, including Elvis Presley, Hank Williams Jr., Bob Dylan, Neil Young, and the Rolling Stones, who recorded his songs. Music critic Cub Koda describes him as "perhaps the most influential bluesman of all," due to his easily accessible style. Biography Reed was born in Dunleith, Mississippi. He learned the harmonica and guitar from his friend Eddie Taylor. After several years of busking and performing there, he moved to Chicago, Illinois, in 1943. He ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Muddy Waters
McKinley Morganfield (April 4, 1913April 30, 1983), better known as Muddy Waters, was an American blues singer-songwriter and musician who was an important figure in the post-World War II blues scene, and is often cited as the "father of modern Chicago blues". His style of playing has been described as "raining down Delta beatitude". Muddy Waters grew up on Stovall Plantation near Clarksdale, Mississippi, and by age 17 was playing the guitar and the harmonica, copying local blues artists Son House and Robert Johnson."His thick heavy voice, the dark colouration of his tone, and his firm, almost solid, personality were all clearly derived from House," wrote the music historian Peter Guralnick in ''Feel Like Going Home'', "but the embellishments, which he added, the imaginative slide technique and more agile rhythms, were closer to Johnson." In 1941, Alan Lomax and Professor John W. Work III of Fisk University recorded him in Mississippi for the Library of Congress. In 1943 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Little Walter
Marion Walter Jacobs (May 1, 1930 – February 15, 1968), known as Little Walter, was an American blues musician, singer, and songwriter, whose revolutionary approach to the harmonica had a strong impact on succeeding generations, earning him comparisons to such seminal artists as Django Reinhardt, Charlie Parker and Jimi Hendrix. His virtuosity and musical innovations fundamentally altered many listeners' expectations of what was possible on blues harmonica. He was inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008, the first and, to date, only artist to be inducted specifically as a harmonica player. Biography Early years Jacobs' date of birth is usually given as May 1, 1930, in Marksville, Louisiana. He was born without a birth certificate and when he applied for a Social Security card in 1940, his birthdate was listed as May 1, 1923. Over the years he often gave different years, but May 1 was constant. In some other documents he filled out before reaching the age of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Juke Joint
Juke joint (also jukejoint, jook house, jook, or juke) is the African-American vernacular term for an informal establishment featuring music, dancing, gambling, and drinking, primarily operated by African Americans in the southeastern United States. A juke joint may also be called a "barrelhouse". Juke joints were the first secular cultural arenas to emerge among African-American Freedman, freedmen. Classic juke joints, found for example at rural crossroads, catered to the rural work force that began to emerge after Emancipation Proclamation, emancipation. Plantation workers and sharecroppers needed a place to relax and socialize following a hard week, particularly since they were barred from most white establishments by Jim Crow laws. Set up on the outskirts of town, often in ramshackle, abandoned buildings or private houses, juke joints offered food, drink, dancing, and gambling for weary workers. Owners made extra money selling groceries or moonshine to patrons, or providi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Ike Turner
Izear Luster "Ike" Turner Jr. (November 5, 1931 – December 12, 2007) was an American musician, bandleader, songwriter, record producer, and talent scout. An early pioneer of 1950s rock and roll, he is best known for his work in the 1960s and 1970s with his wife Tina Turner as the leader of the Ike & Tina Turner Revue. A native of Clarksdale, Mississippi, Turner began playing piano and guitar as a child and then formed the Kings of Rhythm as a teenager. His first recording, " Rocket 88" (credited to Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats), is considered a contender for the distinction of first rock and roll song. During the 1950s, Turner also worked as a talent scout and producer for Sun Records and Modern Records. He was instrumental in the early careers of various blues musicians such as B.B. King, Howlin' Wolf, and Bobby "Blue" Bland. In 1954, Turner relocated to East St. Louis where his Kings of Rhythm became one of the most renowned acts in Greater St. Louis. He fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Clarksdale, Mississippi
Clarksdale is a city in and the county seat of Coahoma County, Mississippi, Coahoma County, Mississippi, United States. It is located along the Sunflower River. Clarksdale is named after John Clark, a settler who founded the city in the mid-19th century when he established a timber mill and business. Clarksdale is in the Mississippi Delta region and is an agricultural and trading center. Many African American musicians developed the blues here, and took this original American music with them to Chicago and other northern cities during the Great Migration (African American), Great Migration. The Clarksdale Micropolitan Statistical Area includes all of Coahoma County. It is located in the Mississippi Delta region of Mississippi. In 2023, the Clarksdale, Mississippi Micropolitan area was added to form the new Memphis-Clarksdale-Forrest City Combined Statistical Area. The Memphis-Clarksdale-Forrest City Combined Statistical Area has around 1.4 million people. The western boundary of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Pinetop Perkins
Joe Willie "Pinetop" Perkins (July 7, 1913 – March 21, 2011) was an American blues pianist. He played with some of the most influential blues and rock-and-roll performers of his time and received numerous honors, including a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and induction into the Blues Hall of Fame. Life and career Early career Perkins was born in Belzoni, Mississippi and raised on a plantation in Honey Island, Mississippi. He began his career as a guitarist but then injured the tendons in his left arm in a knife fight with a chorus girl in Helena, Arkansas in the 1940s. Unable to play the guitar, he switched to the piano. He also moved from Robert Nighthawk's radio program on KFFA to Sonny Boy Williamson's '' King Biscuit Time''. He continued working with Nighthawk, however, accompanying him on "Jackson Town Gal" in 1950. In the 1950s, Perkins joined Earl Hooker and began touring. He recorded " Pinetop's Boogie Woogie" at Sam Phillips's Sun Studio in Memphis, Tenn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
