Tony Ashton was for much of his life a well – kept secret, respected by many of our finest musicians, but apart from his moment in the sun with his…

We’re in the scary process of trying to put in some semblance of order the artefacts created by around 60 years of working in the music business. There are recordings…

April 30th would have been the 100 and somethingth birthday of the legendary Homesick James. Jim shares his reminisences of the colourful character: Every time that I look back on…

Producer of American Blues Legends ’73 Jim Simpson talks us through the stories and characters behind the Big Bear Records cult classic album, featuring Lightnin’ Slim, Homesick James, Snooky Pryor,…

Charles was born in Texas City, Texas, in 1922 and first came to notice as pianist and singer with Johnny Moore’s Three Blazers where his ‘Drifting Blues’ stayed on the…

I’m not the only music fan who developed a fascination for certain record labels. Not the majors, of course, they can look after themselves, but it’s a special feeling to…

One of the very few good things to come about during this Covid nightmare is the opportunity it affords to dig into the archives. With our usual work of booking…

Here’s a funiosity.   On the surface this Press Release from some 46 years ago appears to be about a routine like-for-like replacement for a musician suddenly taken sick mid-tour.…

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…

One Sunday morning, probably in 1984, there was a knock on my front door. I was surprised to find Chicago Blues hooligan Eddie C. Campbell, grinning as he always did,…