Author: C.C. Rider

Chuck Berry took country, combined it with blues, and made a whole new genre. You might have heard of it. Rock n’ Roll…

As a college student in the 1960’s, a young guitarist named David Bromberg found himself smack dab in the middle of the folk blues revival. And ended up living a life all the rest of us blues fans could only dream of…

Unlike your stereotypical blues man, Texas-born Tony Russell Brown, called Charles, was highly educated. He graduated from college with a degree in Chemistry. Taught science and worked as an electrician and an engineer. A scientist through and through—he was also a classically trained pianist…

In the 1950s a young singer named Mathis James Reed failed his audition for Chess Records. He was a popular musician around Chicago, but his simple playing and straightforward songs didn’t wow the execs. Chess Records would go on to regret that they didn’t sign Jimmy Reed…

At age three Billy Preston taught himself to play piano. By age ten he’d graduated to the organ—backing the likes of gospel superstar Mahalia Jackson…

It’s 1955. A man named Titus Turner, an east coast-based R&B composer and singer, pens a track he calls “All Around the World”…

Eric Bibb grew up in music. His dad was a major player in the New York folk scene of the ‘60s. His godfather was Paul Robeson, famous singer and activist. The likes of Pete Seeger and Odetta hung out at his house…

Today we’re gonna trace the Blues origins of hip hop samples back to the Mississippi prison system…

He dressed in wild capes, crawled out of a smoke filled coffin, wore a bone through his nose. But the man called Screamin’ Jay Hawkins never wanted to scream. See, he loved big band music…

Bill Withers wrote and performed some of the best-loved, most covered songs of all time. But he didn’t even pick up an instrument till he was in his late twenties…