Author: C.C. Rider

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. Junior Parker (May 27, 1932 – November 18, 1971) As a young man, Junior Parker learned harmonica licks from Sonny Boy Williamson. Not from Sonny Boy’s records. From Sonny Boy himself. Junior played with Howlin’ Wolf and B.B. King. He even started out…

You know the songs. Sunshine of your Love, White Room. And you know the band right? Cream? Well do you know who wrote ‘em, who sang ‘em? I’ll give you a hint. It wasn’t Eric Clapton…

A mean temper, with a mouth like a sailor, a penchant for whiskey, and a taste for both men and women, Bessie Smith lived a life that would drop the jaws of even the baddest rock star.

“Pretty Woman” is Roy Orbison’s biggest hit, the best known of all his songs. It took the already famous Orbison and rocketed him to a whole new stratosphere.

It might be a luxury tax, might be a sales tax, might be an emotional tax you gotta pay the one you love.

Mississippi born and Alabama raised. She started her recording career in 1923, which makes her one of the first of the blues babes on wax…

For starters, he was one of the greatest radio personalities ever. And when Rufus wasn’t on the radio hootin’ and howlin’, he was promotin’, singin’, dancin’, and writing songs…

What’s the name Pink Floyd mean? Ever wonder where it came from? How did those two words come together? What if I told you the origin of the name Pink Floyd is buried in the blues…

Young Will Shade was a Memphis-born musician who played a bunch of instruments. A serious harmonica player. He’d been dabbling for a while when he heard a recording of a new type of music by a group called the Dixieland Jug Blowers. Hearing that, Will knew he could make a living by rustling up some street musicians from his hometown. And so the Memphis Jug Band was born…

As a kid, Elmore James taught himself to play guitar by stringing up a broom wire on the side of his house. Fitting, that a broom wire would be the origin of what some say is the most recognizable lick in the blues…