Author: C.C. Rider

There are lots of blind bluesmen. But there was only one Blind Willie Johnson. They called him the sightless visionary. A virtuoso on the bottleneck guitar, with a forceful, chilling voice…

Guitar prodigy Michael Bloomfield was a wealthy Jewish kid who loved the blues. A left-handed social-outcast with such a passion for his instrument he flipped his guitar and learned to play right handed.

Texas blues sprung up out of the land. From oil fields. Lumber yards. Levee Camps. But there’s really only one man who deserves credit for bringin’ this certain style out of the Lone Star state and out to the rest of the world. Blind Lemon Jefferson.

This is the latest from The Bluesmobile’s C.C. Rider, who spends her life venerating the founding fathers of the blues. She’s walked the crooked highways of this singing country to resurrect the voices of the past. With the dirt of the Delta on her hands, she sleeps in the shadow of the giants on whose shoulders popular music now stands. Washboard Sam (July 15, 1910 – November 6, 1966) Born in 1910, the man known as Washboard Sam was the most popular Washboard player of the 30s. His career took off when he moved from Memphis to Chicago, where he often played with Memphis Slim,…

He was the King of the Jukebox. One of the first black artists to achieve crossover success. He was a band-leader. Songwriter. Multi-Instrumentalist. Killer dancer. He starred in shorts and feature films alike. He was a titan, and his name was Louis Jordan.

When it comes to American music, the true Bard of the Blues was Willie Dixon. He penned so many tracks you can find whole websites that are nothin’ but lists of his songs. So even if you haven’t heard of Willie Dixon, if you’ve heard any rock or blues at all, you’ve heard his stuff.

Zydeco dynamite Clifton Chenier was the baddest bluesman out of the bayou state. Zydeco’s a genre developed by Creole folks in southwestern Louisiana. It’s like a gumbo–a little bit of blues, a little bit of country, a little bit of sound all the bayou’s own. And it was made famous by Monsieur Chenier himself…

Here on American Blues Scene I often tell ya origin stories. The roots of a rock song, the birth of a legend of the blues. Today: the story of “C.C. Rider.”

I always thought the name Pinetop came from the pine top of a piano. But the man they call Pinetop Smith got his nickname from his love of climbing tall trees. It was the piano though, that made his nickname famous…

The lady born Elizabeth ‘Kid’ Douglas, chewed tobacco while she sang. Perched in her chiffon ballgown, she spat without missin’ a beat…