(March 2025) Episode 637 is BILLIE HOLIDAY. One of the most distinctive American voices. She widened the aperture of jazz with the instrumentality of her voice (from horn players she admired like Louis Armstrong) and bringing in lived experience to her songs (from blues singers she admired like Bessie Smith) (also maybe why I liked her “Strange Fruit”). Personally, this style of jazz isn’t my cup of tea, but her signature voice sells it.
(January 2025) Episode 626 is SON HOUSE. Mississippi blues legend and contemporary of Charley Patton and Robert Johnson. His music is marked by an emotional voice and slashing guitar style, often in slide. He did a number of recordings in the 1930s and early 1940s, including for the Library of Congress, then retiring and returning to performance in the 1960s when “rediscovered” in the blues revival – a path similar to others. The quality of the early recordings seems better than those by many contemporaries.
Favorite album: The Legendary Son House: Father of Folk Blues
Recommendation: You can’t go wrong with any of it. The album above is a good mix of early/later recordings. The Library of Congress sessions disc is also good.
(November 2024) Episode 617 is DAVE VAN RONK. There’s a frustratingly large gap between his music and influence and the public awareness of him, which included me until recently. Nicknamed the “Mayor of MacDougal Street” for his presence on the Greenwich Village folk scene in the 50s and 60s, where he mentored and befriended some who achieved greater fame, like Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell. He was a force of nature with his loud, gruff voice, but he could also make it soft and tender, giving an emotional depth to his songs. His style included blues, ragtime, trad jazz, standards and children’s music. But it’s the spare folk songs, especially with his excellent finger-picking style, where Van Ronk excels. While his focus was on interpreting traditional and others’ songs, he was a talented writer of tune and lyric, as shown on Going Back to Brooklyn, his only album of all original compositions.
Recommendation: Dave Van Ronk, Folksinger; Just Dave Van Ronk; Inside Dave Van Ronk and Going Back to Brookyln showcase his solo guitar folk songs. Dave Van Ronk and the Ragtime Jug Stompers and Dave Van Ronk and the Hudson Stompers are good ensemble albums.
(November 2024) Episode 615 is BIG JOE TURNER. Known as a blues shouter, a performer whose booming voice was needed to be heard above the band. Turner’s voice was as big as his girth. His music, a mix of swing, jump blues and R&B, was extremely influential in the development of rock-n-roll. The best example is his landmark “Shake, Rattle & Roll.” Turner’s top period was in the late 40s and early 50s, but he kept making recordings through the 60s, 70s and early 80s, including jazz and electric blues. I admire his music for its influential role, but for me the style gets the formulaic and tends to bore me.
Episode 603 is TAJ MAHAL. You can label him a blues artist but that’s rather inadequate. That’s where his music is grounded, but he has spread widely over a 55+ year recording career, fusing with or featuring calypso, reggae, trad jazz, Great American Songbook, etc. His early recordings are a throwback to a simpler country blues style, and it’s interesting to note that his first albums came out in 1968, the year that famous rock bands pivoted back to basics (Taj Mahal hung out with the Rolling Stones). He played in fingerpick style, so the recordings in that mode, mostly early on but he returned to them, are my favorite.
Recommendation: There’s so much diversity it’s hard to direct someone. But I think any of the first five albums (1968-72) are fine country blues offerings.
(August 2024) Episode 597 is BO DIDDLEY. Take just the first eponymous album (a collection of singles); the influence on rock music of those songs is as immeasurable as the number of times they have been covered. There’s the classic “chonk, chonk, chonk… chonk-chonk” rhythm that now bears his name. But also the tremolo, which anticipates the explosion of guitar effects the next decade. His scene was never confined to blues, rock or R&B. He never again had the success of those early records, but he retained fame and recognition. I did enjoy his turn to soul/funk in the early 1970s.
(July 2024) Episode 586 is BIG BILL BROONZY. He was among the early generation of recorded country blues guitarist/singers, and his interests and influence were as wide as they are under-acknowledged. His name pops up in many places, as a progenitor of the electric Chicago blues, in the folk revival, and the popularization of blues and folk in Europe, including crucially in the UK. He delved into ragtime, country, folk, jazz-inflected songs and spirituals. Not surprisingly, given my previous episodes, my favorites are the early acoustic guitar blues numbers.
Recommendation: There are a ton of collections and anthologies out there. For the early guitar work, I recommend Do That Guitar Rag or The Young Big Bill Broonzy
(June 2024) Episode 581 is STEFAN GROSSMAN. He is an amazing figure. A Jewish kid from Brooklyn who sought out and took lessons from some of the aging masters of guitar fingerpicking blues, including Rev. Gary Davis, Mississippi John Hurt and Son House. He studied and collected recordings of others, connecting him with Marylanders John Fahey and the legendary 78s collector Joe Bussard. He pioneered guitar instructional records, later videos – a ton of them are available on YouTube. You can learn fingerstyle from him too! He recorded a bunch of his own albums, mostly blues in fickerpicking and slide, but some other styles too. This is my favorite kind of blues music so I eat this stuff up.
Recommendation: Highly recommend. Albums to seek out are Yazoo Basin Boogie, Bottleneck Serenade, Hot Dogs, and Love, Devils and Blues. But check out the guitar tutorial videos, especially if you are a player.
(May 2024) Episode 573 is BESSIE SMITH. She is known as “Empress of the Blues” for being the most popular female blues singer of the 1920s and 1930s. Her vocal delivery over piano and jazz ensemble arrangements has come to be known as vaudeville or classic blues, to distinguish from the guitar-based styles. We are lucky to have a good set of recordings, despite their vintage, that provide a good appreciation of her powerful voice.
(May 2024) Episode 569 is PROFESSOR LONGHAIR. As I continue my mini-tour through New Orleans music, I come upon one of its fathers. “Fess” was best known for his piano style, which incorporated Caribbean rhumba and calypso to create a rhythmic style adopted by generations of New Orleans musicians including Fats Domino, Allen Toussant and Dr. John. He never broke into the big time like the artists he influenced, perhaps in part because his singing style is comparatively a bit clipped and less polished. But you can’t not have a good time with his boogie.
Opus Project 