Browsing: C.C. Rider the Venerator

Joe Cocker. Immortalized at Woodstock. Lampooned by John Belushi. Best known for his raw, grit-soaked re-interpretations of other peoples’ songs. His venerations, you might say…

Green is certainly not the first color that comes to mind when you think about the blues. But you wouldn’t be so crazy if you did…

Little Willie John was just five feet tall and seventeen years old when he walked into the office of a New York record company in a borrowed suit way too big for him…

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…

Wynonie Harris. The original lip-curler, the number one hip-thruster. Professional dancer and a consummate shouter…

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.

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…

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.”