- Buddy Guy
George "Buddy" Guy (born July 30, 1936) is an American blues and rock guitarist and singer. Known as an inspiration to Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton and other 1960s blues and rock legends, Guy is considered an important exponent of Chicago blues. He is the father of female rapper Shawnna. Guy is known for his showmanship; for example, he plays his guitar with drumsticks, or strolls into the audience while jamming and trailing a long guitar cord. - Johnny Winter
John Dawson "Johnny" Winter III (born on 23 February, 1944 in Beaumont, Texas) is an American blues guitarist, singer, and producer. He is the first son of John and Edwina Winter who were very much responsible for Johnny's and his younger brother's, Edgar Winter's, early musical awareness. Both Johnny and Edgar have albinism. - Sonny Terry
Saunders Terrell, better known as Sonny Terry (24 October 1911, Greenboro, Georgia - 11 March 1986, Mineloa, New York) was a blues musician. He was most widely known for his energetic blues harmonica style, which frequently included vocal whoops and hollers, and imitations of trains and fox hunts. - Big Bill Morganfield
William "Big Bill" Morganfield (born 1956) is an American blues singer and guitarist, son of blues legend Muddy Waters, whose real name was McKinley Morganfield. He was born in Chicago, raised in Southern Florida and now lives in Atlanta. He came to music later in life, having first worked as a teacher after earning bachelors degrees in English from Tuskegee University and Communications from Auburn University. Signed to Blind Pig Records, he began releasing albums in 1999. - Louis Jordan
Louis Jordan was a pioneering American jazz, blues and rhythm & blues musician and songwriter who enjoyed his greatest popularity from the late 1930s to the early 1950s. Known as The King of the Jukebox, Jordan was highly popular with both black and white audiences in the later years of the swing era. In 2004, Rolling Stone Magazine ranked him #59 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. - Big Bill Broonzy
Big Bill Broonzy (June 26, 1893 or 1898 - August 15, 1958) was a prolific United States composer, recorder and performer of blues songs. "Big Bill" was born William Lee Conley Broonzy in Scott County, Mississippi on June 26, 1893 or 1898 (the exact year is unclear). While Broonzy himself claimed to be born in 1893, another source claims that Broonzy had a twin sister named Lannie Broonzy who had proof they were born on June 26, 1898. - Sonny Boy Williamson II
Aleck "Rice" Miller, a.k.a. Sonny Boy Williamson II, Willie Williamson, Willie Miller, "Little Boy Blue", "The Goat" and "Footsie," was an American blues harmonica player, singer and songwriter. - Paul Butterfield
Paul Butterfield was an American blues harmonica player and singer, and one of the earliest white exponents of the Chicago-originated electric blues style. Paul Butterfield, a lawyer’s son, was born and grew up in Chicago. After studying classical flute as a teen, he developed a love for the blues harmonica, and hooked up with white, blues-loving, University of Chicago physics student Elvin Bishop (later of “Fooled Around and Fell In Love” fame). - Mississippi John Hurt
"Mississippi" John Smith Hurt (July 2, 1892, Teoc, Carroll County, Mississippi - November 2, 1966, Grenada, Mississippi) was an influential blues singer and guitarist. Raised in Avalon, Mississippi, he learned to play guitar at age 9. He spent much of his youth playing old time music for friends and dances, earning a living as a farm hand into the 1920s. - Roosevelt Sykes
Roosevelt Sykes (January 31, 1906 in Elmar, Arkansas - July 17, 1983 in New Orleans, Louisiana) was an American blues musician also known as "Honeydripper". He was a successful and prolific cigar-chomping blues piano player who influenced blues piano playing with his rollicking thundering boogie. - Lonnie Johnson
Alfonzo "Lonnie" Johnson was a pioneering American blues and jazz singer/guitarist. There is some dispute over the year of his birth, but 1894 is what appears on his passport. He was a pioneer of jazz guitar as the first to play single-string guitar solos. - Duke Robillard
Michael John "Duke" Robillard (born October 4, 1948 in Woonsocket, Rhode Island) is an American blues musician. After paying his dues in various bands and even working for Guild guitars, he co-founded Roomful of Blues with pianist Al Copley in 1967. He has also been a member of the Fabulous Thunderbirds which included Kim Wilson, replacing Jimmie Vaughan. Although an extremely competent guitarist in Jazz, Swing, Rock and Roll and modern electric blues forms, … - Lowell Fulson
Lowell Fulson was a big-voiced blues guitarist in the West Coast tradition. He was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He also recorded for business reasons as Lowell Fullsom and Lowell Fulsom. At the age of eighteen, Fulson joined Alger "Texas" Alexander but later moved to California, forming a band which soon included a young Ray Charles and tenor saxophone great Stanley Turrentine. He recorded for Swing Time in the 1940s, … - Johnny Otis
Johnny Otis (born Ioannis (Yannis) Veliotes on December 28, 1921 in Vallejo, California) is an American blues and rhythm and blues pianist, vibraphonist, drummer, singer, bandleader, and impresario. Johnny Otis was one of the most prominent white figures in the history of black R&B. After playing in a variety of swing orchestras, including Lloyd Hunter's Serenaders, … - George Thorogood
George Thorogood (born December 31, 1950) is a blues-rock performer from Wilmington, Delaware. He was raised on Clearview Avenue in Naamans Gardens, a suburb of Wilmington. - Dinah Washington
Dinah Washington (August 29, 1924 - December 14, 1963) was a blues, R&B and jazz singer. Because of her strong voice and emotional singing, she is known as the Queen of the Blues. Despite dying of a drug overdose in 1963, Dinah Washington became one of the most influential vocalists of the twentieth century. - Joe Louis Walker
Joe Louis Walker (born December 25, 1949 in San Francisco, California) is an American blues guitarist, singer and producer. Walker's parents were blues fans, and introduced him to the music when he was young. He learned to play the guitar at age fourteen, and left home at sixteen to work as a performer. He soon met Mike Bloomfield, who introduced him to the Bay Area Blues scene. During the 1960s, Walker opened for such artists as Earl Hooker, Freddie King and Lowell Fulson. - Scrapper Blackwell
Scrapper Blackwell was an American blues guitarist and singer. Best known as half of the guitar-piano duo he formed with Leroy Carr in the late 1920s and early 1930s, he was an acoustic single-note picker in the Chicago blues style, with some critics noting that he veered towards jazz. - Steven Seagal
Steven Seagal is a movie star, mor specifically an action movie star. The public has long since stopped believing in the movie star as moral paragon, but an odd residue of affectionate respect clings to action stars, probably because they're men of brawn-over-brain, seemingly incapable of the treachery, duplicity, and calculation associated with intelligence. Action heroes, whatever their personal flaws, benefit more than other movie stars from the mythical figures they portray. - Johnny Shines
Johnny Shines was an American blues singer and guitarist. He was born John Ned Shines in Frayser, Tennessee. He spent most of his childhood in Memphis playing slide guitar at an early age in local “jukes” and for tips on the streets. His first musical influences were Blind Lemon Jefferson and Howlin’ Wolf, but he was taught to play the guitar by his mother. - Amos Milburn
Amos Milburn was an American rhythm and blues singer, and pianist, popular in the 1940s and 1950s. He was born and died in Houston, Texas. - James Booker
James Booker - Pianist, Vocalist, Recording Artist (December 17, 1939 - November 8, 1983) - Johnnie Taylor
Johnnie Harrison Taylor (born May 5, 1937, Crawfordsville, Arkansas; died May 31, 2000, Dallas, Texas) was an American vocalist in a wide variety of genres, from gospel, blues and soul to pop, doo-wop and disco. Taylor had one release, "Somewhere to Lay My Head", on Chicago's Chance Records in the 1950s, as part of the doo-wop group Five Echoes. His singing was strikingly close to that of Sam Cooke, and he was hired to take Cooke's place in Cooke's gospel group, … - Bill Sims
Bill Sims, Jr., is an American blues musician. He grew up in Marion, Ohio and began playing piano at the age of four. At age 14, he turned professional and joined the rhythm and blues band the Jacksonian Blues, which he left to attend Ohio State University. In 1971, Sims joined another rhythm and blues group, the doo-wop-influenced Four Mints. He left the band in 1976 to form The Lamorians, an avant-garde jazz band influenced by traditional African drumming. - Gregg Henry
Gregg Henry (born May 6, 1952 in Lakewood, Colorado) is an American theater and film character actor and rock, blues, and country musician. He is best known for playing "heavies" in various films, such as in "Payback" (1999) and Brian De Palma's "Body Double" (1984). Henry has also been featured in over 75 television programs, including "The Riches", "Firefly", "Gilmore Girls", "24", "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation", … - Curley Weaver
James "Curley" Weaver (March 25, 1906 - September 20, 1962) was an American blues musician known as "the Georgia Guitar Wizard". - Lonnie Mack
Lonnie Mack (born Lonnie McIntosh, 18 July 1941, Harrison, Indiana) is an influential rock and blues guitarist. - Nick Gravenites
Nicholas George Gravenites (born October 2, 1938 in Chicago, Illinois), known as Nick "The Greek" Gravenites and Gravy, is a blues, rock and folk singer/songwriter and is best known for his work with Janis Joplin and several other greats of the era. Nick currently resides in Sebastopol, CA. According to author and pop music critic Joel Selvin, … - Jessie Mae Hemphill
Jessie Mae Hemphill (October 18, 1923 - July 22, 2006), was a pioneering electric guitarist, songwriter, and vocalist specializing in the primal, northern Mississippi country blues traditions of her family and regional heritage. She was born near Como and Senatobia, Mississippi, in northern Mississippi just east of the Mississippi Delta. - Lester Butler
Lester Butler (1959-May 10, 1998) was an American blues harmonica player and singer. He achieved fame as the singer/harp player for the Los Angeles-based blues-roots band The Red Devils, which released one album, 1992's "King King" (produced by Rick Rubin on his Def American label). The group featured several standout musicians, include drummer Bill Bateman (The Blasters), Paul "The Kid" Size on lead guitar and pianist Gene Taylor. - Sonny Boy Williamson I
Sonny Boy Williamson (John Lee Curtis Williamson, 30 March 1914 - 1 June 1948) was an American blues harmonica player, and the first to use the name Sonny Boy Williamson. - Charlie Burse
Charlie Burse was an African-American blues musician best known for his skill with the ukulele. He was nicknamed “Uke Kid Burse” because of his talent, which extended to many other instruments as well. Burse learned to play banjo and regular guitar during his early life. He was also proficient with the tenor guitar and the mandolin. Additionally, Burse performed as a vocalist and could keep rhythm using the spoons. - Lazy Lester
Lazy Lester (born Leslie Johnson in Torras, Louisiana, 20 June 1933) is a swamp blues harmonica master whose half-century career spans the 1950s to the 2000s. Best known for regional hits recorded with Jay Miller's Crowley, Louisiana-based Excello Records, Lester also contributed as a side-man to swamp blues classics recorded by Excello label-mates including Slim Harpo, Lightnin' Slim, and Katie Webster. - Washboard Sam
Robert Brown, known professionally as Washboard Sam, was an American blues singer and musician. Reputedly the half-brother of Big Bill Broonzy, Brown moved to Memphis in the 1920s, performing as a street musician with Sleepy John Estes and Hammie Nixon. He then moved to Chicago in 1932, performing regularly with Broonzy, … - Percy Mayfield
Percy Mayfield was an American songwriter famous for the songs "Hit the Road Jack" and "Please Send Me Someone to Love", as well as a successful rhythm and blues artist known for his smooth vocal style. - Katie Webster
American boogie-woogie pianist Katie Webster is acknowledged as one of the most important blues artists of her generation. - Black Ace
Black Ace was the most frequently used stage name of American blues musician Babe Kyro Lemon Turner (b 21 December 1907, Hughes Springs, Texas – d 7 November 1972, Fort Worth, Texas), who was also known as B.K. Turner, Black Ace Turner or Babe Turner. He was raised on the family farm, and taught himself to play guitar, performing in east Texas from the late 1920s on. During the early 1930s he began playing with Smokey Hogg and Buddy Woods, … - Robert Belfour
Robert "Wolfman" Belfour (born September 11, 1940, Holly Springs, MS) is an American Blues musician. His father, Grant Belfour taught him the guitar at a young age and he continued his tutelage in the Blues from musicians Otha Turner, R. L. Burnside, and Junior Kimbrough. Kimbrough, in particular, had a profound influence on him. His father died when Belfour was thirteen, and his music was relegated to what little free time he had, … - Chris Smither
Chris Smither (born November 11, 1944 in Miami, Florida) is an American folk/blues singer, guitarist, and songwriter. His music draws deeply from the blues, American folk music, modern poets and philosophers. His family lived in Ecuador and the Rio Grande Valley in Texas before settling in New Orleans when Chris was three-years old. He grew up in New Orleans, and lived briefly in Paris where he and his twin sister attended French public school. - Snooks Eaglin
Snooks Eaglin (born January 21, 1936 in New Orleans, Louisiana) is a guitarist and singer in New Orleans. His real name is Fird Eaglin, Jr. He has also been referred to as Blind Snooks Eaglin. His vocal style is reminiscent of Ray Charles; indeed, in the 50s, when he was in his late teens, he would sometimes bill himself as "Little" Ray Charles. He is generally regarded as a New Orleans R&B artist playing a wide range of music from blues, rock 'n' roll, jazz, …
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