This Week In The Blues: May 12 - May 18, 2024

HEY BLUES FANS - Here's the latest episode of "This Week In The Blues" for the week of May 12 - May 18, 2024.

Some of the highlights include blues harmonica virtuoso Little Walter, blues shouter Big Joe Turner, blues maestro Taj Mahal, and the day that late night talk show host Johnny Carson and his bandleader Doc Severinsen wear fake beards in honor of ZZ Top.

We just covered some of the highlights here. If you want to know more about these artists or other things that happened this week in the blues, be sure to visit our website or follow our Facebook page:
https://bigtrainblues.com
https://www.facebook.com/BigTrainBlues

Photo credits (if known) and past episodes are posted on our YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/@BigTrainBlues

Here are links to a few of the artists or songs we've referenced in this week's episode:

Little Walter - "Juke" - https://youtu.be/3J3eGUATzaY?si=KPQiKxnA51-5JtOy

Big Joe Turner - "Boogie Woogie Country Girl" - https://youtu.be/CiCiVBlZtz4?si=tISCgYFcyPrlUFP0

Taj Mahal - "Queen Bee - Bloody Sunday Sessions" - https://youtu.be/sjTEkhXgu_4?si=3lXG-jfnR-onUKBJ

ZZ Top - "First Appearance on Live Television | Carson Tonight Show" - https://youtu.be/fjNm4Axtol8?si=xKMF24i0uohROgQQ


We’ll have a new episode next week – we’ll see you then!

ARE YOU A FAN OF BLUES HISTORY? US TOO!

If you want to know more about these artists or other things that happened this week in the blues, be sure to visit our website or follow our Facebook page:

https://bigtrainblues.com

https://www.facebook.com/BigTrainBlues

Transcript

This Week In The Blues May 12 - May 18, 2024

On May 12 in 1952, blues harmonica virtuoso Little Walter recorded "Juke". The track was the groundbreaking instrumental that established Little Walter Jacobs as a national recording star and brought unprecedented prominence to the harmonica as a prime instrument in the blues. Untold numbers of blues performers took up the harp in the wake of 'Juke''s 20-week run on the Billboard rhythm & blues charts. 

blues guitarist CeDell Davis was born May 13. 1926 in Helena, Arkansas. When he was 10, he suffered from severe polio which gave him little control over his left hand and restricted use of his right. He had been playing guitar prior to his polio and decided to continue despite his handicap. Davis played guitar using a butter knife in his fretting hand in a manner similar to slide guitar. He began playing in various nightclubs across the Mississippi Delta area. While playing in a club in 1957, a police raid caused the crowd to stampede over Davis. Both of his legs were broken in this incident and he was forced to use a wheelchair from that time onwards.

Blues saxophonist Grady Gaines was born on May 14, 1934. grew up in the Fifth Ward, a racially segregated neighborhood of Houston, Texas. Gaines worked as a session musician for Peacock Records, then performed and recorded with Little Richard’s backing band The Upsetters in the 1950s. He also backed other musicians such as Dee Clark, Little Willie John, Sam Cooke, James Brown, Jackie Wilson, and Joe Tex. He released three solo albums, and he’s also the brother of the late blues guitarist Roy Gaines.

Here’s another Mississippi Ghost story about blues singer and guitarist Willard "Ramblin'" Thomas who may have been born sometime in 1901 or 1902, and died around 1945. We DO know that he was born in Logansport, Louisiana, was one of nine children in his family, and is the brother of the blues musician Jesse Thomas. He is best remembered for his slide guitar playing and for several recordings he made in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Blues scholars seem undecided if his nickname referred to his style of playing or to his itinerant nature. 

On May 15, 1929 blues singer Bessie Smith recorded "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out" in New York City. It became one of her biggest hits and is the song that most people associate with Bessie Smith. When Smith's record was released on September 13, 1929 (a Friday), the lyrics turned out to be oddly prophetic. The New York stock market had reached an all-time high less than two weeks earlier, only to go into its biggest decline two weeks later in the Wall Street Crash of 1929, which signaled the beginning of the ten-year Great Depression.

On May 16 1986 Johnny Carson and his bandleader Doc Severinsen wear fake beards in honor of ZZ Top, who perform "Sharp Dressed Man" and "Tush" on The Tonight Show.  Back then, whenever an act performed on the Tonight Show they were always complimented in one way or another by the Tonight Show Orchestra. Both of the songs on this particular show were augmented by the horn section. Not something you normally hear on ZZ Top songs. You can watch the clip on YouTube and I’ll include a link in the show notes.

blues harp player and singer Big George Brock was born May 16 1932 in Grenada, Mississippi. By the time he was eight, he was working as a sharecropper picking cotton. Brock was surrounded by blues music, and his father taught him and his brothers how to play harmonica as a child. Later in life he gave up boxing and focused on his music, forming his own band Big George & the Houserockers. He relocated to St Louis, and blues guitarist Albert King played in Brock's band before forming his own.

Speaking of Albert King, on May 17, 1967 he recorded his blues classic "Born Under a Bad Sign". The lyrics were written by Stax Records rhythm and blues singer William Bell with music by Stax bandleader Booker T. Jones of Booker T. & the M.G.'s. It became a blues standard as well as an R&B chart hit for King, and numerous blues and other musicians have made it perhaps the most recorded Albert King song.

blues maestro Taj Mahal was born May 17, 1942. His birth name is Henry St. Clair Fredericks.  He plays the guitar, piano, banjo, harmonica, and many other instruments, often incorporating elements of world music into his work. Mahal has done much to reshape the definition and scope of blues music over the course of his more than 50-year career by fusing it with nontraditional forms, including sounds from the Caribbean, Africa, India, Hawaii, and the South Pacific

Little Son Joe was born on May 18, 1900.  Born Ernest Lawlars in Hughes, Arkansas he’s best known for his musical partnership with his wife, Memphis Minnie. He teamed up with Minnie in the late 30s, replacing her previous husband and partner, Joe McCoy. Lawlars recorded in his own right under the name Little Son Joe, but most of his recorded work was as an accompanist to Minnie. In 1942 he had a hit with "Black Rat Swing", billed as “Mr. Memphis Minnie”

blues shouter Big Joe Turner on May 18, 1911.  He was the premier blues shouter of the postwar era, Big Joe Turner’s roar could rattle the very foundation of any gin joint he sang within — and that’s without a microphone. Turner effortlessly spanned boogie-woogie, jump blues, even the first wave of rock & roll, enjoying great success in each genre. Turner was a product of the Kansas City music scene and his career as a performer endured from the 1920s into the 1980s. 

Well blues fans, we just covered some of the highlights here. If you want to know more about these artists or other things that happened this week in the blues, be sure to follow our social media pages or visit our website at Big Train Blues.com. We’ll have a new episode next week – we’ll see you then!