The Blues Store 1: Classic Blues and Legendary Bluesmen

Blues Legends 1: Lead Belly to Rev Gary Davis

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History Unlimited Blues: From Lead Belly to the Rev Gary Davis.

On This Page: Lead Belly, Papa Charlie Jackson, Charlie Patton, Big Bill Broonzy, Lonnie Johnson,, Tommy Johnson, Reverend Gary Davis. And see Blues Roots on our Jazz Pages

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Origins of The Blues

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We strongly suggest that you review the information provided on Amazon carefully before selecting your choices. Artists develop and draw upon their own repertoires of standard numbers which appear, in various interpretations, on a succession of albums. It is worth studying the available information to avoid unwanted duplication (although the variations are often interesting in their own right). On the other hand, compilation albums and sets can be of varying degrees of comprehensiveness, a factor that is often reflected in a wide range of prices. Where appropriate, we have tried to give choices that cater to every budget.

Artists on our Blues Legends pages are arranged in order of their dates of birth.

MP3 Downloads: Click on a title to go to the relevant Amazon page then scroll down to Track Listings to see if the content is currently available as a Download. To search the Amazon MP3 Store for other titles or artists, CLICK HERE. Amazon Downloads are free from DRM (Digital Rights Management) so you can play your downloads in any music programme including iPod and Windows Media Player. Please note that Cookies must be enabled and Pop-up Blockers disabled.

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Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues: A Musical Journey / Martin Scorsese et al

2004. Colour/BW. USA. 780 mins. DVD (7 Film Series).

Producer Martin Scorsese’s monument to the sources of American popular music, ranging from African roots to the British revival and to influences on contemporary musicians. A collection of seven films directed by Scorsese and six other top directors, including Clint Eastwood, Wim Wenders, Charles Burnett and Mike Figgis. Essential viewing for blues lovers that will bear many return visits.

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Lead Belly (aka Leadbelly)

1888-1949. Born Huddie William Ledbetter near Mooringsport, Louisiana.

Born on the Jeter Plantation, Huddie Ledbetter moved with his family to Leigh, Texas, when he was five. His first instrument was the accordion, and he also played mandolin, piano, violin and harmonica; but his success as a musician came through his mastery of twelve string guitar. His powerful vocal style was ideally suited to the folk-blues ballads he introduced into the mainstream of American music.

Lead Belly’s career was marred by frequent clashes with the law, usually resulting from his defending his claims to be the greatest at whatever happened to be the subject of a conversation. He was jailed (for the second time) for manslaughter in 1918. During this term he acquired the nickname ‘Lead Belly’ (often rendered as ‘Leadbelly) because of his toughness and a proven ability to survive the violence of the prison world. He was serving another sentence, for attempted homicide, in the early 1930s when he was discovered by the musicologists Alan and John Lomax. The Lomaxes recorded many of his songs for the Library of Congress and were partly instrumental in obtaining his early release from the Louisiana State Penitentiary. In 1934 Lead Belly moved to New York with Alan Lomax, where he achieved some fame but little commercial success. After another brief spell in prison in 1939-40 he became friendly with New York folk musicians Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, before moving to California in 1944. Lead Belly had already recorded for Moe Asch (the later founder of Folkways) and RCA; on the west coast he recorded major sessions for Capitol. He fell ill and was diagnosed with lateral sclerosis during his first European tour in 1949 and died in the same year.

Lead Belly’s legacy is enormous, and the artists and bands who have covered his original songs and adaptations reads like a who’s who of popular music. An early hit (1950) was Goodnight Irene, recorded by Pete Seeger’s The Weavers. Among other chart entries were The House of the Rising Sun (The Animals, 1964) and Midnight Special (Creedence Clearwater Revival 1969) and these songs have been covered variously by a multitude of artists, notably Joan Baez and The Rolling Stones. The list of covers includes tracks by Lonnie Donegan, Ry Cooder, Johnny Cash, The Grateful Dead, Led Zeppelin, Mungo Jerry, Rod Stewart, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Nirvana and many, many more.

The Definitive Leadbelly / Lead Belly

Format: 3 Disc Box Set. 75 Tracks.

Complete Recorded Works Vol 1 1939-1940 / Lead Belly

Format: 1 Disc. 25 Tracks.

Complete Recorded Works Vol 2 1940-1943 / Lead Belly

Format: 1 Disc. 29 Tracks.

Complete Recorded Works Vol 3 1943-1944 / Lead Belly

Format: 1 Disc. 26 Tracks.

Complete Recorded Works Vol 4 1944 / Lead Belly

Format: 1 Disc. 29 Tracks.

Complete Recorded Works Vol 5 1944-1946 / Lead Belly

Format: 1 Disc. 28 Tracks.

Complete Recorded Works Vol 6 1947 / Lead Belly

Format: 1 Disc. 38 Tracks.

Complete Recorded Works Vol 7 1947-1949 / Lead Belly

Format: 1 Disc. 28 Tracks.

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Papa Charlie Jackson

1890(?)-1938. Probably born New Orleans, Louisiana.

Comparatively little is known about the life of Papa Charlie Jackson – even his birth and death dates depend on no more than probability. Certainly his teen years were spent on the medicine and minstrel show circuit. He is known to have busked on Chicago’s Maxwell Street in the early 1920s and by 1924 was playing for tips in West Side clubs. He made his first recordings in that year, one of the first male blues singers to do so. These first records for Paramount, Papa’s Lawdy Lawdy Blues and Airy Man Blues, were quickly followed up with Salt Lake City Blues and Salty Dog Blues. Jackson was to stay with Paramount for a decade, often crossing over into a burgeoning jazz industry and recording with Freddie Keppard, Ma Rainey, Ida Cox, Harrie McDaniel and ragtime guitarist Blind Blake. But the 1924-25 Paramount sessions stayed closest to the purist blues tradition.

Jackson played banjo-guitar on his pioneering early recordings, but switched occasionally to ukulele or guitar in subsequent years. His songs often looked back to the bawdy legacy of the medicine shows and vaudeville, but his repertoire also included romantic and deeply personal numbers. Papa Charlie Jackson was a major influence on Big Bill Broonzy and as late as 1934 cut three tracks with Big Bill for the Okeh label. Sadly these tracks were never issued.

Papa Charlie Jackson Vol 1 1924-1925 / Papa Charlie Jackson

Format: 1 Disc. 27 Tracks.

Papa Charlie Jackson Vol 2 1924-1925 / Papa Charlie Jackson

Format: 1 Disc. 26 Tracks.

Papa Charlie Jackson Vol 3 1924-1925 / Papa Charlie Jackson

Format: 1 Disc. 25 Tracks.

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Charlie Patton

1891-1935. Born in Edwards, Mississippi.

Charlie Patton is one of the earliest known proponents of American popular music and widely regarded as the Father of the Delta Blues. Patton spent most of his life in Sunflower County in the Delta, moving with his family to the Dockery Plantation in around 1900. Here the young Charlie Patton came under the influence of Henry Sloan, whose innovative style would be recognised as one of the earliest forms of blues. By 1910 the 19-year-old Patton was a proficient composer and performer, with his own signature tune ‘Pony Blues’. Patton was the epitome of the hard drinking, chain smoking bluesman and is often credited with giving slide guitar especial prominence in Delta Blues. While at Dockery, Charlie Patton became mentor to both Howlin’ Wolf and John Lee Hooker, and was an influence on both Tommy and Robert Johnson. In the mid-1920s he partnered Willie Brown. Many other musicians have credited Patton as the inspiration for their style. Patton is therefore at the core of blues development in the 1910s and 1920s, and by extension down to the present day. He gained a considerable following in the South, not least through a style of showmanship that anticipated Jimi Hendrix and other rock musicians of the 1960s and 1970s.

Between 1929 and 1932 Paramount released some twenty-one tracks, and Patton went on to Vocalion for his last recordings, released in 1934 and 1935. He moved to Holly Ridge Mississippi in 1933 with Bertha Lee, his common-law wife and recording partner on Oh Death/Troubled ‘Bout My Mother (1934). His recorded work includes Screamin’ and Hollerin’ the Blues, High Water, High Sheriff Blues and I Shall Not Be Moved. A stunning version of Oh Death was recorded by Ralph Stanley for the Coen Brothers’ movie O Brother Where Art Thou (2000 qv) and performed live for the Down From the Mountain concert (2001 qv), both available from our Film Store. Charlie Patton died from heart failure on the Heathman-Dedham Plantation in 1934 and is buried in Holly Ridge. NOTE THAT THE SAMPLE TRACK IS TAKEN FROM A DIFFERENT ALBUM TO THOSE FEATURED HERE - SAMPLES DIRECT FROM THESE ALBUMS ARE NOT AVAILABLE.

Charlie Patton Vol 1 1929 / Charlie Patton

Format: 1 Disc. 20 Tracks.

Charlie Patton Vol 2 1929 / Charlie Patton

Format: 1 Disc. 20 Tracks.

Charlie Patton Vol 3 1929-1934 / Charlie Patton

Format: 1 Disc. 21 Tracks.

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Big Bill Broonzy

1893(?)-1958. Born William Lee Conley Broonzy in Scott County, Mississippi.

Big Bill Broonzy was one of eighteen children of a sharecropping family who moved from Mississippi to Arkansas before the turn of the century. By this time Broonzy had been taught the fiddle by his uncle, Jerry Belcher, and was playing for country socials and the church. By 1912 he had moved on to become a part-time preacher and violinist. Returning from army service after WWI, Broonzy moved from Arkansas to Chicago to escape the racism of the South and to begin his career as a musician. Taught to play guitar by Papa Charlie Jackson, by the 1930s Big Bill Broonzy was one of the leaders of the Chicago blues scene, performing alongside other blues giants. A milestone event was John Hammond’s 1938 Spirituals and Swing concert at New York’s Carnegie Hall, when Broonzy played in front of a white audience for the first time.

Big Bill continued as the acknowledged Godfather of Chicago Blues well into the 1940s, when he was somewhat sidelined in the USA by the rise of the electric guitar and a new generation of bluesmen. From the early 1950s Big Bill toured regularly in Great Britain and Europe, where he found new and appreciative audiences and was a major influence on the folk, blues and rock ‘n’ roll explosion of the 1950s and early 1960s. Broonzy’s autobiography Big Bill Blues, narrated to writer Yannick Bruynoghe, was published (in London) in 1955. Used paperback copies are available from a number of sellers via Amazon, from £100 upwards! Click Here

Performing and recording to the end, Big Bill Broonzy was diagnosed with throat cancer in 1957 and died on 15 August 1958.

All the Classic Sides 1928-1937 / Big Bill Broonzy et al

Format: 5 Disc Box Set. 125 Tracks.

Where the Blues Began / Big Bill Broonzy

Format: 2 Disc Set. 60 Tracks.

Godfather of Chicago Blues / Big Bill Broonzy

Format: 1 Disc. 22 Tracks.

Classics 1949-1951 / Big Bill Broonzy

Format: 1 Disc. 22 Tracks.

Classics 1951 / Big Bill Broonzy

Format: 1 Disc. 23 Tracks.

Trouble in Mind / Big Bill Broonzy

Format: 1 Disc. 18 Tracks.

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Lonnie Johnson

1894-1970. Born Alonzo Johnson in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Like Papa Charlie Jackson, Lonnie Johnson was a musician who frequently crossed over from traditional blues into mainstream jazz. Johnson sometimes resented being pigeon-holed as a blues musician, a perception that was rooted in his winning an Okeh Records blues competition. By this time he was already developing the guitar style that was his main preoccupation, but he had done some singing: ‘I guess I would have done anything to get recorded. It just happened to be a blues contest, so I sang the blues’. Nonetheless, Johnson made a series of distinctive recordings for Okeh between 1925 and 1932, alongside guest appearances on tracks by Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and The Chocolate Dandies.

Lonnie Johnson came from a family of musicians and studied violin and guitar in his early years. He escaped the 1918 influenza epidemic that killed most of his family while he was on a revue tour in England. In the early 1920s he worked with orchestras on the Mississippi riverboats before settling in St. Louis. In 1925 he married blues singer Mary Johnson. Johnson’s was a single string-guitar style and he is credited with being one of the originators of the guitar solo. His 12-string guitar recordings were a major influence on future jazz artists such as Charlie Christian and Django Reinhardt; and his songs and style also influenced Elvis Presley and Bob Dylan. According to the latter, Lonnie Johnson may well have had an influence on his namesake Robert Johnson.

After the classic Okeh recordings Johnson dipped in and out of the music industry, often working in menial jobs. Between 1937 and 1942 he recorded for Decca, Columbia and other labels; and after World War II his career was revived by a number of hits featuring electric guitar. In 1959, while he was working as a porter in a Philadelphia hotel, he was rediscovered by disc jockey Chris Albertson. His comeback began with a gig at the Chicago Playboy Club, which was followed by performances with the Ellington Orchestra, European tours and a number of albums recorded for the Bluesville label. But while Johnson toured extensively during the 1960’s, his sophisticated urban style did not sit too comfortably with the audience for the ethnic folk-blues revival. Lonnie Johnson died in Ontario from complications following a car accident.

Lonnie Johnson Vol 1 1925-1932 / Lonnie Johnson

Format: 1 Disc. 25 Tracks.

Lonnie Johnson Vol 2 1926-1927 / Lonnie Johnson

Format: 1 Disc. 25 Tracks.

Vol 3 of this series not available at time of posting

Lonnie Johnson Vol 4 1928-1929 / Lonnie Johnson

Format: 1 Disc. 24 Tracks.

Lonnie Johnson Vol 5 1929-1930 / Lonnie Johnson

Format: 1 Disc. 22 Tracks.

Lonnie Johnson Vol 6 1930-1931 / Lonnie Johnson

Format: 1 Disc. 22 Tracks.

Lonnie Johnson Vol 7 1931-1932 / Lonnie Johnson

Format: 1 Disc. 21 Tracks.

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Tommy Johnson

1896-1956. Born in Hinds County, Mississippi.

Tommy Johnson’s brothers Mager and LeDell both played guitar, and LeDell had taught Tommy the rudiments by 1910. By 1914 the sharecropping brothers were supplementing their income by playing at parties and in 1916 Tommy married Maggie Bidwell (immortalised in Maggie Campbell Blues) and moved to Webb Jenning’s Plantation, close to the Dockery Plantation and home of Charley Patton. Patton was an influence in many ways, not all good. The Delta Blues guitar technique was honed in company with Patton, Willie Brown and other local luminaries, and Johnson followed Patton’s showboating performance style. But Johnson also fell into the alcohol-fuelled lifestyle that seemed a necessary myth-making ingredient of the contemporary blues scene. Johnson certainly understood the power of myth, promoting the legend that he had sold his soul to the devil in return for his musical virtuosity. By the 1920s Johnson was an alcoholic and his music alternated with sharecropping to pay for his drinking, gambling and womanising.

Tommy Johnson cut his only records in 1928 and 1929, for Victor and Paramount (after the onset of the Great Depression he was not invited to record again). His first releases made a tremendous impact in the blues heartland, inspiring up-and-coming artists such as Howlin’ Wolf and Robert Nighthawk. His second session with Victor included the infamous Canned Heat Blues, written around his alcohol addiction and his reverting to Sterno drinking when all else failed. The track provided the name for the West Coast blues-rock band. The theme recurred in his last Paramount session in Alcohol and Jake Blues. By the 1930s alcoholism was taking its toll and Johnson fell back on the medicine show, juke and house party circuit. He died from a heart attack while playing at a local house party in 1956.

Tommy Johnson featured in the Coen Brothers’ O Brother Where Art Thou? (2000, available from our Film Store) although the character played by Chris Thomas King was patently too young to represent the real Tommy Johnson during the period of the film. It is most likely that the film presented a fictional merging of Tommy with his namesake Robert Johnson. Both men were reputed to have sold their souls at a country crossroads. NOTE THAT THE SAMPLE TRACK IS TAKEN FROM A DIFFERENT ALBUM FROM THE ONE FEATURED HERE - SAMPLES DIRECT FROM THIS ALBUM ARE NOT AVAILABLE.

Tommy Johnson 1928-1929 / Tommy Johnson

Format: 1 Disc. 17 Tracks.

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Reverend Gary Davis

1896-1972. Born in Laurens, South Carolina.

Gary Davis was born partially sighted and was completely blind before he reached adulthood. Initially self-taught (beginning at the age of six) he polished his guitar style under the influence of local musicians after his family moved to Greenville, South Carolina, in 1911. Religious conviction became central to his life, stemming from early church attendances that helped him come to terms with his blindness. Like the similarly-afflicted Blind Willie Johnson, his music derived from the spirituals and gospel songs of the Baptist Church. And like Willie Johnson, Davis spent time as a street preacher and musician, following a move to Durham, North Carolina, in the mid-1920s. In the 1930s Durham was merging as a power house of the blues – Blind Boy Fuller could also be found playing on Durham’s street corners – and Davis came into contact with Fuller and other Piedmont bluesmen, including Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry. In 1935 Davis went with Fuller to New York to cut his first recordings, for the American Record Company. By this time he had moved to Washington, North Carolina, and had been ordained a minister in the Free Baptist Connection Church.

The late 1930s found Davis in Mamaroneck, New York, and in touch with the vibrant NY music business. He began recording again, for Moses Asche, Folkways and Prestige. But religion and music went hand in hand, and when Davis moved to Harlem in 1940 he began preaching on the streets and at the Missionary Baptist Connection Church while at the same time recording and teaching guitar. His finger-picking style attracted students and extended his influence well into the blues revival of the late 1950s and 1960s. With his ‘rediscovery’ he became one of the most popular performers on the folk and blues scene, touring as far afield as Great Britain and appearing at the Newport Folk Festival in 1968. His later guitar students included Dave Van Ronk, Jorma Kaukonen, Bob Weir and David Bromberg. His songs have been recorded by Bob Dylan, The Grateful Dead, Peter, Paul and Mary, Jackson Browne and many others.

Demons and Angels: The Ultimate Collection / Rev Gary Davis

Format: 3 Disc Box Set. 57 Tracks.

Rev Blind Gary Davis 1935-1949: Meet You at the Station / Rev Gary Davis

Format: 1 Disc. 18 Tracks.

O, Glory: The Apostolic Studio Sessions / Rev Gary Davis

Format: 1 Disc. 12 Tracks.

Live at Newport / Rev Gary Davis

Format: 1 Disc. 13 Tracks.

Live at Cambridge 1971 / Rev Gary Davis

Format: 1 Disc. 5 Tracks.

Reverend Gary Davis: Blues & Ragtime / Rev Gary Davis

Format: 1 Disc. 16 Tracks.