Sweet Home
Sweet Home: December 2012
The search for a young guitar savior has flummoxed the blues for years. Glimpses of hope appeared here and there over the last decade, only to be buried among the millennial musical confusion. But none carried as much promise and pedigree as Gary Clark Jr. A fixture on the storied Austin music scene since the […]
Sweet Home: November 2012
Wayne Baker Brooks has always been a rebel. While most blues musicians were weaned on a steady diet of classic blues, he also listened to house music, ’80s rock, and hip-hop. While most scions of blues legends gain musical schooling from the masters themselves, Brooks is self-taught. And while most musicians regularly perform riveting examples […]
Sweet Home: October 2012
With the decidedly testosterone-filled focus of contemporary blues, it’s easy to forget that the genre was popularized at the beginning of the last century by a handful of spirited women. Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, Ethel Waters, and Ida Cox all helped usher in the era of recorded blues records and Memphis Minnie, with her finely-honed […]
Sweet Home: September 2012
There’s no question that the blues serves as the foundation for traditional American music genres, but it’s easy to forget that it doesn’t necessarily have to take a musical form. The blues can flow through words, movements, and sensibilities. It can inform literature, dance, visual art, and theater. The eta Creative Arts Foundation illustrates this […]
Sweet Home: August 2012
Belting out lyrics with pleasing raspiness and punctuating them with kicks, Peaches Staten sings with the conviction and sass of a seasoned blues singer. She prowls the stage like she’s scraped her way through swamps and gutbucket bars to snag recognition. Except she hasn’t.
Sweet Home: July 2012
The Chicago Blues Fest has been restored. For the last five or six years, the fest didn’t do the greatest job of spreading the blues spirit. Weak lineups, uninspired themes, and budget cutbacks all conspired to make the world’s largest free blues festival not so exciting. But 2012 wiped all of that away.
Sweet Home: June 2012
Michael “Iron Man” Burks was the kind of bluesman who endeared everyone to him. If you didn’t fall in love with his gritty vocals and fierce guitar licks, you were captured by his humble charm and hardworking attitude.
Sweet Home: May 2012
Much has been discussed about the direction that blues will take as the genre enters the crossroads of redefining itself while the last of the Delta bluesmen pass away. The past few decades have introduced more rock into the traditional blues sound, but soul has always been a more devoted offspring.
Sweet Home: April 2012
Eric Davis does not look like the stereotypical bluesman. His muscular frame is typically adorned in fitted tanks or vests, and his shaved head is always covered with his trademark bandanna. His arms are emblazoned with tattoos and his face with a goatee.
Sweet Home: March 2012
The legacy of Muddy Waters looms over Chicago blues with a vivid, unforgettable presence that serves as the standard for what defines the genre. Appearing: March 31st at Buddy Guy’s Legends with The Chicago Blues Angels and Eddie Taylor Jr. From his swaggering vocals to the fierce slide-guitar riffs that electrified the blues, there are […]
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