Blues Girls With Attitude
One afternoon back in 1973, I took an unexpected telephone call. It was Victoria Spivey. Considering that we had only previously been in contact by letter, and that had mostly…
Standing On The Corner of 12th Street and Vine
Kansas City, Missouri stands at the crossroads where blues and jazz meet. From the wild and wide-open days of the mid 1920s, when Tom Pendergast steadfastly refused to let Prohibition…
Detroit Black Bottom
Black Bottom was a predominantly black neighbourhood in Detroit, Michigan. A lot of folk wrongly believe that it got its name from the African-American community that developed there in the…
Beale Street Blues
From the early 1900s, musicians from the nearby state of Mississippi made their way to Memphis, Tennessee, attracted by the bright lights of Beale Street. Among the more prominent arrivals…
Those Mississippi Hill Country Blues
Whereas Mississippi Delta Blues is a well-known and recognisable form of the music, there is a lesser-known style that might well have slipped under the radar of some folks. It…