Category: Henry’s Blues Blog

American Blues Legends ’74 took the likes of Doctor Ross, Cousin Joe, Big John Wrencher and Eddie Playboy Taylor on a tour across the UK and Europe, before recovening in…

Chuck Berry, photographed by Jim Simpson at Birmingham Hippodrome in 1964 Chuck Berry was a difficult man. Moody, erratic, arrogant, rude and utterly Trumpian when it came to greed. He…

Following on from last week’s Part 1 of Paris Blues featuring Memphis Slim and Willie Mabon, we feature the third of those great American bluesmen who made Paris their home…

Since the early 1920s Paris had become a bolt-hole for black American musicians. During the First World War black U.S. troops had discovered a racial freedom that was denied them…

Willie Dixon, maybe the single most influential of bluesmen, was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi, on the first day of July 1915. A composer, record producer, arranger, bass player, recording artist,…

I will never understand why Hurricane Bobby Charles is not a household name in Blues and Rock & Roll. Admittedly, he never seemed to seek the limelight, which I suppose…

Photograph: Howlin Wolf at Birmingham Town Hall, 1964. Copyright Jim Simpson. June the 10th marks the 111th anniversary of an undisputed great of Chicago Blues: Howlin’ Wolf. Back when he…

Producer of the American Blues Legends ’75 album Jim Simpson talks us through the backstories behind the bluesmen on the record, including Tommy Tucker, Homesick James, Eddie Guitar Burns, Little…

A remarkable number of important Black American bluesmen, as well as jazz musicians, singers and dancers, left the U.S. and made their home in Europe, most of them staying for…

Sonny Boy Williamson #2 backstage at Birmingham Town Hall, photographed by Jim Simpson In the Blues world, the odd incident of larceny is not unknown. Poaching another bandleader’s sideman is…