Blues You Should Know
39 episodes - English - Latest episode: 3 months ago - ★★★★★ - 7 ratingsThe purpose of this podcast will be to pull your coats to some of the influential and notable blues artists who have contributed mightily to our genre. I won’t be talking about the folks you probably already know about: Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, BB King and the like, instead we’ll explore the lives and music of some of the greats who have either become forgotten or perhaps never quite made the “A list.”. The blues has a deep and rich history and the more you broaden your listening scope the more you’ll appreciate and understand this music we all love so much.
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Episodes
Robert Lockwood, Jr. 1st Interview
February 02, 2024 21:00 - 54 minutes - 37.3 MBThis program features what I, and the original interviewer Ron Weinstock, believe is the first ever extended interview with Robert Lockwood, Jr. This took place at the studios of radio station WRUW-FM on the campus of Case-Western Reserve University in early 1971. Present in the studio were Weinstock, Lockwood, Dave Griggs, and myself. Robert had recently emerged from a ten year semi-retirement and was playing as a featured guest in the Dave Griggs band, in clubs around the Greater Clevela...
Eight String Blues, Pt. 2
March 01, 2023 05:00 - 55 minutes - 38.4 MBThe second half of our two part series on blues mandolin features several of the post-war stars of the mandolin including Johnny Young, Martin, Bogan & Armstrong, Steve James, and more. This program also includes our first ever live interview, here with mandolin player/educator/promotor Rich DelGrosso. By the conclusion of this program we hope you'll agree that the mandolin is indeed a blues instrument that should be used a lot more. Blues You Should Know is always free and available on your...
Eight String Blues, Pt 1
February 01, 2023 05:00 - 47 minutes - 32.8 MBDo you think of the mandolin as a blues instrument? You should and you will after hearing these two programs. In part 1 we'll hear some of the early practitioners of blues mandolin like Coley Jones, Yank Rachell and Charlie McCoy. We'll even hear from mandolin slingers heavily influenced by the early masters, Bill Monroe and Ry Cooder. Part 2 will feature mandolinists from the post-war era and will also include our first ever live interview with mandolin player/promoter/educator Rich Del Gro...
Lonnie Johnson, Pt. 2
January 03, 2023 05:00 - 54 minutes - 37.2 MBIn part two we explore Lonnie's post-war recordings and life. We hear how he adapts his music to a new era. Lonnie has his biggest hit, "Tomorrow Night" for King Records, in 1947 and becomes a favorite of British trad-jazz fans. In the '60s Lonnie has yet another comeback (he was the king of comebacks) and records a series of albums for Prestige Bluesville. Lonnie tours Europe again with the AFBF and eventually moves to Toronto. In 1969 he is struck by a car, which he survives, but leads to...
Lonnie Johnson Pt. 1
November 29, 2022 03:00 - 48 minutes - 33.4 MBLonnie Johnson may arguably be the most influential guitarist of all time. He was the first guitarist to play single string solos in both jazz and blues styles long before even Django Reinhardt or Charlie Christian. Robert Johnson imitated him on record and BB King and many others cited him as a major influence. He was also a superb singer with a gentle, mellow voice and was a terrific and prolific songwriter. His career, which began in the mid 1920s, before the advent of electric (microphon...
The Long Legacy, Pt. 2
December 08, 2021 06:00 - 39 minutes - 27.1 MBOne of the most interesting characters in genre full of interesting characters was J.B. Long of North Carolina. Long was a shopkeeper who, for reasons we may never fully understand, made recording great bluesmen a hobby/passion/obsession. In the summer of 1935 Long, along with his wife and baby girl, drove Blind Boy Fuller, Rev. Gary Davis, and George Washington (Bull City Red) to New York where they made their first recordings. Davis's records did nothing commercially, but Fuller's sold wel...
The Long Legacy Pt. 1
November 09, 2021 04:00 - 40 minutes - 28.1 MBOne of the most interesting characters in genre full of interesting characters was J.B. Long of North Carolina. Long was a shopkeeper who, for reasons we may never fully understand, made recording great bluesmen a hobby/passion/obsession. In the summer of 1935 Long, along with his wife and baby girl, drove Blind Boy Fuller, Rev. Gary Davis, and George Washington (Bull City Red) to New York where they made their first recordings. Davis's records did nothing commercially, but Fuller's sold wel...
Percy Mayfield-Poet Laureate of the Blues
October 12, 2021 05:00 - 25 minutes - 17.5 MBKnown today mainly for his sensitive and evocative compositions like Hit the Road Jack, Please Send Me Someone to Love, and Rivers Invitation, Percy Mayfield began his career as a big band vocalist of the Bronze Baritone genre, until a serious auto accident nearly killed him, disfigured his face, and ended his career as a matinee idol/singing heartthrob. After his recovery, he continued his career as a songwriter writing hit records for others and making the occasional recording himself. S...
Another Pair of Kings, Pt.2 - Earl King
September 15, 2021 19:00 - 45 minutes - 31.3 MBEvery blues fan knows about the three Kings of the Blues, Albert, BB & Freddie, but we're going to add two more: Saunders King and Earl King. In Part 2 we explore the music and life of Earl King of New Orleans. Earl was a singer, guitarist, songwriter, record producer and mentor to dozens of young New Orleans musicians. He may be best known for his two part record, Come On, also known as Let the Good Times Roll , recorded by Jimi Hendrix and many more. His first hit was another New Orleans ...
Another Pair of Kings Pt. 1-Saunders King
August 24, 2021 21:00 - 32 minutes - 22.1 MBEvery blues fan knows about the three Kings of the Blues, Albert, BB & Freddie, but we're going to add two more: Saunders King and Earl King. Part 1 takes a look at the music and life of Saunders King who was in fact, the first blues artist to solo on electric guitar, preceding T-Bone Walker by two months. Saunders was a fine guitarist in the Charlie Christian mold, and also a marvelous vocalist, able to sing blues, pop and ballads with equal facility. He was also the father-in-law of guitar...
Cleveland Blues
August 10, 2021 17:00 - 1 hour - 44.3 MBWe kick off season three with a special program about blues from my home-town, Cleveland, Ohio. We start by explaining why Cleveland has never the blues center that Chicago, Detroit, Atlanta, or Mississippi were, then move on to feature some great musicians either born in Cleveland or who lived a significant portion of their lives here. Cow Cow Davenport, Montana Taylor, Bullmoose Jackson, Sonny Boy Williamson, Robert Lockwood, Jr., Wallace Coleman, Travis Haddix, Kristine Jackson, and, of ...
The Liggins Bros.-Joe & Jimmy
June 15, 2021 17:00 - 41 minutes - 28.7 MBWhile Louis Jordan was clearly the most successful recording artist of the jump-blues era of the late '40s-early '50s, there were also quite a few great performers of that era including Tiny Bradshaw, Wynonie Harris, Roy Brown, Roy Milton, and our featured artists for this episode: Joe and Jimmy Liggins. The Los Angeles based Liggins Bros., who led separate bands, had several popular hit records and recorded some great, light-hearted blues records. There's is not the deeply Southern-influenc...
Bob Wills Blues
June 01, 2021 16:00 - 34 minutes - 23.6 MBAccording to legend, a young Bob Wills once rode 50 miles on horseback to hear Bessie Smith sing. Throughout his long career, Wills mined the blues for some of his best and most popular numbers. His band, Bob Wills & the Texas Playboys, were by no means strictly a blues band, but the blues was always present in his music. In this episode we take a look at his blues sources and how he interpreted and transformed them to suit his purposes and his audiences. Support the show
King Records 7.1-Our Final Episode on King Records
May 18, 2021 06:00 - 56 minutes - 39.2 MBBlues You Should Know Podcast presents our final (yes, I mean it this time) program on the music of King Records, Ohio's great eclectic record label. There was just too much great music, and too many great artists left over, so we offer one more program we're calling King Records 7.1. Hear blues from Champion Jack Dupree, & Baby Boy Warren, jazz from Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, Do-Wop from Linda Hays & the Platters & Otis Williams, rockabilly from Charlie Feathers & Hardrock Gunter, and more! Pl...
King Records Pt. 7-Odds & Ends
May 04, 2021 16:00 - 49 minutes - 33.9 MBHere in Part 7 we go over the life of King Records founder and president Syd Nathan. We also spotlight some great King artists we haven't been able to fit into the programs so far. These include some of King's biggest selling artists like Earl Bostic, Five Royales, Mainer's Mountaineers, Roland Kirk, Bill Doggett and more. Oh, and despite what you hear me say at the beginning of the episode, we're not done with King yet! Support the show
King Records, Pt. 6-James Brown!
April 21, 2021 06:00 - 50 minutes - 34.8 MBPart 6 of our series on King Records is devoted to one artist-James Brown. We cover the recordings he made for King from his debut single, Please, Please, Please through his recordings with Bootsy & Catfish Collins. Brown was King's biggest star and certainly his most socially significant artist. Learn about the origin of the "Cape Routine" and much more. Support the show
King Records Pt. 5, Kings of Kings
April 07, 2021 05:00 - 46 minutes - 31.7 MBThere were indeed Kings at King Records. Two of the best known were Albert and Freddy King, but there were more! Kings of King on Blues You Should Know. Support the show
King Records Pt. 4 "King Bluegrass"
March 24, 2021 03:00 - 41 minutes - 28.4 MBKing records released a great deal of Bluegrass music without a large roster of Bluegrass performers. The artists they did have, though, were the top-o-the heap. Reno & Smiley, Bobby Osborne and Jimmy Martin, Napier & Moore, and of course, Ralph & Carter, the Stanley Brothers. There were no "one and done" Bluegrass artists on King. All three of their major Bluegrass acts, the Stanleys, Reno & Smiley, and Napier & Moore recorded regularly and extensively, and their substantial output marks an...
King Records Pt. 3
March 09, 2021 18:00 - 34 minutes - 23.7 MBThe Blues on King. King wasn't a hard-core blues label the way Chess was, but blues was a significant part of its catalog. Hear John Lee Hooker, Smokey Smothers, Tiny Topsy, Cleanhead Vinson, Johnny Guitar Watson, and of course, the voice of Syd Nathan himself explaining just how things are and are going to be! Coming up next: Part 3, King Bluegrass. Support the show
King Records Pt 2
February 23, 2021 18:00 - 39 minutes - 27.2 MBAs the '40s fade into the '50s, Syd establishes a toe-hold, then a foot-hold in the R & B market while maintaining King's presence in the Country market. Hear Earl Bostic, Tiny Bradshaw, Lonnie Johnson, Moon Mullican, Hawkshaw Hawkins, the York Brothers, Billy Ward and more on part two of our eight part series on King Records, Ohio's own great eclectic record label. Support the show
King Records Pt. 1
February 09, 2021 18:00 - 36 minutes - 25.2 MBWe begin our 8 part series on Ohio's great, eclectic record label King Records, started and owned by the wonderfully colorful and irascible Syd Nathan. We begin with Syd's journey into the record business and King's early years recording country singers like Grandpa Jones, the Delmore Brothers, and Merle Travis. We'll get to his entry into the "race" or R&B field with recordings by Bull Moose Jackson and Wynonnie Harris. There's plenty more to come in future shows including Freddie King, th...
Ma Rainey's Real Producers-J. Mayo Williams & Aletha Dickerson
January 26, 2021 18:00 - 1 hour - 41.4 MBThe film and play "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" is a great piece of historical fiction, but it gets one thing very wrong: Ma Rainey's records were actually produced by two extraordinary African-Americans: J. Mayo Williams & Aletha Dickerson. Here is their story and, in this case, truth is far more interesting than fiction. Support the show
John Henry & the Cocaine Blues
January 12, 2021 20:00 - 32 minutes - 22.3 MBHere's a look at American music's ultimate crossover song: John Henry. To African-Americans he was a symbol of racial pride; to unionists, he represented the power of the American worker and union solidarity; to poor whites; he was personification of rugged Americanism, and to Christians; a Christ-like figure who died for our sins. And, as a bonus, a look at two versions of one of the oddest songs in blues and folk music, the Cocaine Blues. Support the show
Lillian McMurray & Trumpet Records
December 29, 2020 18:00 - 37 minutes - 25.6 MBWhat would make a genteel, white Southern lady from Mississippi want to start a company to record black blues and golspel artists,...and in the early 1950s? Find out on this episode of "Blues You Should Know" with Bob Frank. Trumpet Records didn't last very long, but while it was going, it was the only record company headquartered in Mississippi, and recorded the likes of Sonny Boy Williamson, Elmore James, Jerry McCain, Big Boy Crudup and more. Support the show
Election Special-Georgia on My Mind, Pt 2
December 15, 2020 19:00 - 43 minutes - 29.8 MBIn honor of the recent election, this show is dedicated to the great Peach State: Georgia. All songs will either contain the word "Georgia" in the title, or will be by an artist or group whose name includes "Georgia". Pt. 2 features Jimmy McCracklin, Gov. Jimmie Davis, the GA. Yellow Hammers, Luther "Georgia Boy" Johnson, Ray Charles and more! Support the show
Election Special: Georgia On My Mind Pt. 1
December 01, 2020 18:00 - 47 minutes - 32.4 MBIn honor of the recent election, this show is dedicated to the great Peach State: Georgia. All songs will either contain the word "Georgia" in the title, or will be by an artist or group whose name includes "Georgia". Pt. 1 features Blind Blake, BBQ Bob, the Skillet Lickers, Mike Bloomfield & Maria Muldaur, Hoagy Charmichael and more! Support the show
Robt. Lockwood's Guitar Transformation
November 17, 2020 19:00 - 29 minutes - 20.6 MBAt f his 1941 debut recordings, Robt. Lockwood, Jr. was a finger-style, acoustic disciple of his step-father Robert Johnson. By the early 1950's, he'd transformed himself into perhaps the hottest electric lead guitarist on the Chicago recording scene. This episode tells how this happened. Support the show
The McCoy Brothers & the Harlem Hamfats
November 03, 2020 19:00 - 18 minutes - 13.1 MBEnter the wild and wacky world of the Harlem Hamfats, the group that combined the sophistication of Chicago & New Orleans Jazz with the deep blues of the Mississippi Delta. The blues component consisted of two of Mississippi's finest musicians, the brothers Charlie & Joe McCoy. Support the show
Two Texans-Texas Alexander & Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson
October 20, 2020 18:00 - 32 minutes - 22.4 MBOur show today focuses on two Texans with vastly different styles. Texas Alexander was as deep and intense as a bluesman could be. An itinerant, details of his life are scant yet he recorded dozens of sides over a 25 or so year period. Eddie "Vinson was something else entirely. Called "Cleanhead" (for a process job gone horribly wrong), Eddie played alto sax and sang in that area of blues that walks the line between blues and jazz. Support the show
Big Maceo
October 06, 2020 18:00 - 43 minutes - 29.8 MBFor a mere five years, the rollicking, hard-driving piano playing of Major "Big Maceo" Merriweather dominated the Chicago blues scene. Maceo was left handed, and no one before or since has been able to create the drive and beat that propelled the recordings he made with Tampa Red, Big Bill Broonzy, Sonny Boy Williamson I, and under his own name. Sadly, a stroke in 1946 deprived him of the use of his right hand. Support the show
Robert Nighthawk
October 01, 2020 21:00 - 19 minutes - 13.7 MBRobert Nighthawk (Robert Lee McCollum) was one of the few Chicago based blues guitarists to make the successful stylistic jump from pre-war acoustic blues playing to post-war electric playing. As a slide player, he was probably the primary guitar influence on Muddy Waters. In addition, he had a wonderfully wry and deceptively smooth vocal style that matched his guitar playing to a tee. Nighthawk never became a major blues star, or achieved the popularity of someone like Muddy or the Wolf, bu...
Trailer
September 29, 2020 21:00 - 2 minutes - 1.89 MBWell hello everybody and welcome to “Blues You Should Know”. I’m Bob Frank and I’m the host and creator of the program. I’ve been a professional musician for the past 45 years or so; also a songwriter, a writer, an educator, a filmmaker and now a podcaster. I originally began doing these programs as a radio show within a radio show on my friend Marty “Madcat” Puljic’s blues radio program on WJCU-FM in Cleveland, OH. The idea, then and now, was to explore the artists and music one level or...
Early Anthologies
August 28, 2020 21:00 - 51 minutes - 35.2 MBMany of the early country blues recordings we love today exist because, in the 1950s and early '60s, an intrepid group of oddball record collectors went door-to-door in Black neighborhoods the rural South offering to buy old records. Some of them took these records and started small, independent, record labels to get this music to the modern public. Here is the story of three of these releases. Support the show
Skip James
August 28, 2020 21:00 - 26 minutes - 18 MBSkip James made a handful of recordings for Paramount in 1931. They sounded like nothing else anyone had ever heard and they didn't sell well. Skip dropped out of sight until 1963, when he was "rediscovered" in a hospital in Tunica, MS. Here is the story of how he picked up his career after 30+ years and became a sensation on the mid-sixties folk festival circuit. One of his songs, "I'm So Glad" even became a hit for the English rock group Cream. But there's more to that story... Support th...
Sleepy John Estes
August 28, 2020 21:00 - 24 minutes - 16.7 MBThe community of Brownsville, Tennessee lies about 60 miles or so just East of Memphis, just a short ways off of Highway 40, the long interstate that runs the entire width of Tennessee from North Carolina’s Great Smoky Mountains to the Mississippi River. Brownsville, whose population was roughly ten thousand at the last census, has recently come to recognize two of its most accomplished offspring. Located in the former Flagg Grove School, once a one-room schoolhouse for “colored” childr...
Three Ladies I Love
August 28, 2020 21:00 - 41 minutes - 28.5 MBBlues isn't just a male thing. Here are three wonderful, if not widely known, female blues singers that I'm just crazy about: Lil Green, Annie Laurie and Julia Lee. Give 'em a listen. I'll guarantee you fall in love with them too. Support the show
Hollywood Fats
August 28, 2020 20:00 - 39 minutes - 27 MBName me a guitar player from a well-to-do Jewish family who revolutionized blues guitar, created a sensation, then died far too young. Mike Bloomfield? Yes, but a couple of decades later Michael Mann, aka Hollywood Fats did pretty much the same thing, and came to the same tragic end. As Bloomfield essentially founded blues-rock guitar, Fats founded the West Coast school of guitar. It's a sad story, and he was woefully under-recorded, but what he left us was absolutely thrilling. Support th...
Magic Sam
August 28, 2020 20:00 - 23 minutes - 16.2 MBMagic Sam exploded like a meteor on the national blues scene. Everyone who knew Sam liked him; he was a powerful singer with a soaring tenor voice, an imaginative songwriter, and an innovative guitarist, but bad luck hounded him throughout his short life. Support the show
Bo Carter
August 28, 2020 20:00 - 40 minutes - 27.7 MBHe was the undisputed king of the double-entendre song, but Bo Carter was also a brilliant and innovative guitarist, using unusual tunings and slipping a bit of his genius in every song. Support the show