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02/02/2025

The first time that Buddy Guy, quite possibly the greatest living blues guitarist, heard Stevie Ray Vaughan play, he couldn’t believe it. “He was hitting them notes and made me feel like I should go in the audience and watch so I could learn something,” says Guy in Alan Paul and Andy Aledort’s illuminating oral history, “Texas Flood: The Inside Story of Stevie Ray Vaughan.”

Lots of people felt the same way. During his brief, blazing time in the spotlight — just seven years passed between the acclaimed debut album that gives this book its title and the 1990 helicopter crash that killed him at age 35 — Vaughan seemed to represent the culmination of the guitar hero era, absorbing the influences of masters from B.B. King, Albert King to Lonnie Mack to (especially) Jimi Hendrix and spinning them into endlessly inventive, laser-sharp fretwork. “Stevie had the intensity of rock with the deep feeling of the blues,” says Warren Haynes of the Allman Brothers Band and Gov’t Mule. “That was a lethal combination.”

It’s hard to think of anyone since Vaughan who has generated the same excitement around the guitar. Maybe those days are gone. But the burning intensity of his playing hasn’t dulled in the almost 30 years since his death. “He was probably the most fierce of the bluesmen I’ve ever heard,” says Bonnie Raitt. “He was playing as if his life depended on it, and it did.”

By Alan Light / NY Times
Photo: United Archives—Hulton Archives
Credit: Don's Tunes

01/29/2025

"Despite having only a cursory education, B.B King had a natural dignity, poise, and grace that was worthy of royalty. He was also a polished showman and the embodiment of humility. As for influences, King admired T-Bone Walker, Charlie Christian, Django Reinhardt, Lonnie Johnson, and Blind Lemon Jefferson. It may be a surprise to some but he was also a huge Frank Sinatra fan.

In his autobiography King writes: "I'm a Sinatra nut. No one sings a ballad with more tenderness... when Sinatra wants to swing, no-one swings any harder. No-one phrases any hipper." But like all truly great artists, B.B. King was unmistakably B.B. King, both as a guitarist and a singer. In truth, he defined blues guitar for an entire generation of blues guitarists, and was arguably one of the greatest blues singers the world has known.

B.B. King also loved jazz, and respected jazz musicians. He was especially fond of Dizzy Gillespie and thankfully he left us his thoughts about Gillespie and Charlie Parker in his autobiography. Despite being friendly, King had what he described as a "keep-to-myself" nature. On the road, he had met most of the prominent musicians of the day, but generally it was small talk and pleasantries. That wasn't the case with Gillespie. Although they were on different tours, one time he and Gillespie were booked in the same hotel and became close. King described Gillespie as the "least pretentious" man he had ever met. Gillespie was a country kid from South Carolina, so he and King spent hours reminiscing about farm life. King was in awe of Gillespie's talent, knowledge of music, and reputation, so when he told King that he liked 'Three O'Clock Blues,' that made King feel like a "million bucks." He described Gillespie as a guy who was a "frantic and funny dude" and fun to be around.

By Alan Bryson / All About Jazz
photo by Lynn Goldsmith
Credit: Don's Tunes

01/28/2025

Buddy Guy: I started playing electric guitar “a little bit before I left Baton Rouge. I think it was a Gibson, but there was another guy named Big Poppa. He had a band, and I was too shy to sing back then – ’til I learned how to drink a shot of wine first,” he says with a laugh.

“Big Poppa bought the guitars. He said, ‘I’ll buy you a guitar, but you’ve got to come play in my band. I wouldn’t sing, but I played and finally made a little noise in Baton Rouge.

“A friend of mine had left Baton Rouge and gone to Chicago. His wife got killed and he came back. He said to me, ‘Man, you should go to Chicago!’ I thought, As soon as I save up a little money I’m gonna come and see it, and if I don’t like it, I’ll come back.

“I got to Chicago on September the 25th, 1957. And I’m still here.”

By Gary Graff - Guitarplayer
Photo by Paul Natkin
Credit: Don's Tunes

01/27/2025

Mark Lavon Helm was born near Marvell on May 26, 1940. He grew up in Turkey Scratch, working on the family’s farm and singing and playing music at home and at church. Helm said he decided to become a musician at the age of six, after seeing bluegrass legend Bill Monroe perform. Two years later he began playing guitar but switched to drums after seeing a left-handed drummer in a traveling musical show. It was in nearby West Helena that he met another Arkansas native, Ronnie Hawkins, who was playing a show without a drummer. His piano player knew Levon and suggested that he join the band that evening on drums. It was Helm’s “big break.”

(If you're wondering, it became Levon when, the story goes, his band mates had "trouble pronouncing Lavon." His family and close friends just called him Lee.)

After graduating high school in Marvell, he joined Hawkins’ band full time. Hawkins and his group headed to Canada – Ronnie Hawkins liked living and playing in Canada, where rockabilly was extremely popular. In 1959, Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks were signed to a record deal. During this time, Hawkins added several musicians to the roster – pianist Richard Manuel, bassist Rick Danko, keyboard and saxophone player Garth Hudson and guitarist Robbie Robertson. The four Canadian musicians and Helm would go on to form their own group after leaving Ronnie Hawkins…and eventually, after playing as Bob Dylan’s backup band, the five went out on their own…and The Band was formed.

In 1968, the Band released their critically acclaimed debut album, Music from the Big Pink. They continued to record and perform together until 1976, when one of the members decided he’d had enough of life on the road. The Band’s last concert, at Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco on Thanksgiving 1976, was recorded and directed by Martin Scorsese as a documentary, The Last Waltz. Also on hand for the one-of-a-kind musical event was Bob Dylan, Ronnie Hawkins, Eric Clapton, Muddy Waters, Joni Mitchell, Neil Diamond, Paul Butterfield, Dr. John and Van Morrison. The Last Waltz is considered by many to be the greatest concert documentary ever made.

However, Levon Helm was not one of those people. Helm, according to his autobiography This Wheel’s on Fire, wanted the Band to continue recording and performing live. One of the other band members did not. Levon continued recording and performing live (sometimes on his own or with former members of the Band or even with other groups such as Ringo Starr & His All Starr Band). It was his friend Tommy Lee Jones that suggested him for the part of Loretta Lynn’s father in the movie Coal Miner’s Daughter. After that, he appeared in nearly 20 movies, including the The Right Stuff, The End of the Line and In the Electric Mist, his last film performance.

By Kim Williams
Levon Helm poses for a portrait in October 1969 in Woodstock, New York.
(Photo by David Gahr)
Credit: Don's Tunes

01/26/2025

Despite having a career that spanned only seven short years, Stevie Ray Vaughan’s influence on blues guitar is immense. It’s impossible to overstate just how much his virtuosic yet accessible style informed those who came after him. By 1990, the year of his tragic death, Vaughan had already left an indelible mark on the world of blues.

But what made him so special? If there’s one thing I can say for certain, it’s that blues is full of highly skilled guitarists; hell, it’s the foundation of the whole style. BB King, Buddy Guy, Robert Johnson, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, the list is endless.

However, Stevie Ray Vaughan’s playing contained something indefinable, something which allowed him to play with more than just skill. He played with a tenderness and precision which seemed utterly at odds with one another and yet formed into a cohesive style. His playing was, in a word, sublime. Below, we put his style on the operating table. Join us as we dissect the guitar playing of Stevie Ray Vaughan.

The first thing most people notice about Vaughan’s style is its simplicity. His stripped-back approach to blues guitar heightens the style’s rhythmic properties. In tracks like ‘Pride And Joy’, Vaughen plays a simple 12-bar blues pattern on the off-beat, giving the track an energetic, bluegrass feel.

That’s not to say that Vaughan doesn’t know how to rip it. He is famed for his dynamic and highly skilled lead parts. He is second only to Hendrix in his ability to make his guitar sing like some sort of insane bird. His use of pentatonic scales, double stops, and triplets combine to form kaleidoscopic and intricate solos.

The influence of Hendrix was always present in Vaughen’s guitar playing and, in his own words: “I loved Jimi a lot. He was so much more than just a blues guitarist. He could do anything. I was about 16 when he died. I could do some of his stuff by then but actually, I’ve been trying to find out what he was doing more so lately than I was then. Now I’m really learning how to do it and I’m trying to expand on it – not that I can expand on it a whole bunch. But I try.”

Vaughan knew his fretboard so well, was so well-versed in finding the right route to any given note, that he could play an eight-minute solo without repeating himself even once. In this way, he was like many of jazz’s great guitarists. Vaughan’s solos were often generated from a pre-established structure around which he was able to improvise freely. That’s why the sound is so intoxicating: because we are listening to Vaughan in a moment of instantaneous creation. As a result, Vaughan admired the ability of guitarists who made their own rules, taking a foundation of knowledge and then breaking the rules.

It’s possible this jazz sensibility stems from his love of gipsy-jazz legend Django Reinhardt. As Vaughan himself once said: “To me, Django and Jimi were doing the same thing in a lot of ways. Django would do it with acoustic guitar and Jimi would do it on electric… Neither one of them had anything to build on, they just did it. Django didn’t have any book or anything to borrow from. He wrote the book. Same with Jimi. Nobody was doing those kinds of electronic things he was doing. He just did it.”

Sam Kemp / Far Out Magazine
Photo: William Snyder
Credit: Don's Tunes

01/25/2025

Johnny Winter: “The record stores had little record players where you could listen to ’em, and I liked everything,” said Johnny. “I bought every blues record I could find. It made my style broader because I literally bought everybody I could find so I didn’t sound like just one person. I’d practice six or eight hours a day in my room after school, and played so many different styles that they turned into my style.”

“If I hadn’t been a musician, I can’t imagine being anything else,” “It was something I’ve loved to do all my life. I can’t imagine taking it away; being a musician is part of me.”

By Mary Lou Sullivan
Photo by Jack Robinson/Hulton Archive
Credit: Don's Tunes

01/21/2025

Stevie Ray Vaughan: The first time I ever heard Jimi Henrrix's name was when my brother brought a record of his home in the mid ’60s. I guess it was around ’67, ’68. And Jimmie had found it in a trash bin! Behind it. He was playing a gig at this show in Dallas called Sumpin Else, and he found this record. He recognized it because he’d seen a little blurb in a magazine, just a short paragraph about Jimi Hendrix. He knew he was supposed to be something really happening, and he just happened to see this record that had gotten thrown out with a bunch of other stuff, because it didn’t fit in with the show perfectly or something, you know. And he brought it home and put it on the record player, and we just about – what can you do? [Laughs.] What can you do but say, “Yeah!” It really knocked my socks off.

I’m not sure exactly the year, and I’m not sure which song it was. It’s kind of a blur, because around the same time my brother Jimmie, he had this knack of figuring out who was really happening. And why! [Laughs.] And he would bring home these records. It seemed to me that Jimmie would all of a sudden bring home stuff, and it would be months before you would hear it anywhere else. He would bring home so much of it. He would get into a certain style of music, and he would bring a lot of that stuff home about the same time. It just seemed as if for some reason he could just come up with a style and all of a sudden he had all the ifs, ands, and buts around it. All of the things of different people who were in the same school – that went to school together, you know, instead of a different school. He would bring home all these things at the same time, so a lot of the different influences that were on Jimi Hendrix, I heard those things at the same time.

I remember getting my little stereo – it was one of those Airlines with the “satellite speakers.” That’s what they called them, but they were really these cardboard boxes with a long wire. I would set that up, mike that up. I had a Shure P.A. in my room – this is in my bedroom. For some of my first gigs, I’d go and rent like four Super Reverbs, and I’d have all this set up in my room. [Laughs.] Of course, the parents were at work. I would go in there and floorboard it, you know. Dress up as cool as I could and try to learn his stuff. It all went together. I would try to learn his stuff, and I did the same thing with a lot of B.B. King records. I think back and I must have really – if somebody had walked into the room, they probably would have gone, “What are you doing?!” Because I wouldn’t stop at one place – I’d go for every bit of it I could find. I remember doing it a lot with Axis: Bold as Love, even though I didn’t have the phasing deals, and I’m sure I didn’t have a lot of the sounds. But some of them I could find.

Stevie Ray Vaughan: Our 1989 Interview About Jimi Hendrix © 2023 Jas Obrecht.
Credit: Don's Tunes

01/19/2025

Keith Richards: When I’m about 13 — rock ‘n’ roll. Now, in England you had no idea who came from where, who was what. You didn’t know Chuck Berry was black or that Carl Perkins was white.

Maybe Elvis you knew about. I’m talking ‘56, ‘57 now. But the minute I heard that music—Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis. We didn’t know sh*t from shinola. The sound came in over the airwaves, and hit us like a ton of bricks. That’s what I want to play. If I’m gonna play an instrument, that’s what I want to do. That’s the first step. So then I started to buy a few records over the next couple of years, and then you start to find out a little bit more about the guys that are playing.

And then you start backtracking. So Chuck Berry was like my main man because he happened to be one of the first I heard. If I could play like that, then I’m in rock ‘n’ roll pigsh*t heaven forever. Boom, no problem.

Oh, he’s on Chess Records. Who else is on Chess Records? This guy called Muddy Waters, Bo Diddley, Little Walter. Then you start to backtrack and find out where it came from, and then I eventually started to connect it up with what I knew about music in the first place which is from jazz—Louis Armstrong. There was no real difference, but there was a gap there. Where did these guys get it from? They can’t just all have popped out of the woodwork at the same time spontaneously. What was their catalyst? If I hear somebody good, I wanna know who he listened to. I want to figure out the moves.

Myself, and most other guys who were interested in playing music, spent half of our time backtracking trying to find out who was who, where did they came from. Because you didn’t get much. Muddy was one album issued in 8 or 9 years. You didn’t get a lot. In England, an American record got released if it had sold so many copies in America. That was their way, their yardstick of whether they were going to release the record.

Eric Clapton, Chuck Berry and Keith Richards at Chuck Berry’s Los Angeles home during the filming of Taylor Hackford’s documentary ‘Hail! Hail! Rock n Roll’, 1986.

Interview By Brian Keizer
Photographer: Terry O’Neill

01/19/2025

Remembering Janis Joplin (January 19, 1943 – October 4, 1970)
Multi-dimensional women aren’t always treated with a lot of nuance and Joplin is an obvious example. As the singer Cat Power said of her childhood icon in 2015: “At the time, I don’t think there was any female that was really that free on stage, that loving, that open.” Yet, off stage, her complexities meant she never quite found peace in a world that required her to fit a particular mould. She was fiercely independent but craved acceptance from her family; she was opinionated but worried about causing offence; she was a nonconformist but was desperate to belong.

For Dave Getz, Joplin’s Big Brother and the Holding Company bandmate, the musicianship of Joplin is too often overlooked amid these contradictions. Take her elemental voice: something she tirelessly tended to. “She was very serious as a singer, and she did evolve as a singer”.

Over the years, we’ve tended to focus instead on Joplin’s psychology, her pain and rejection – something that is all too common when it comes to discussing female artists, Getz argues. She might not have been in control of some aspects of her personal life, but the same can’t be said for her approach to music. According to Elliot Mazer, who did the mixing for Joplin and Big Brother’s 1968 album Cheap Thrills: “For two weeks, only Janis, myself, and the engineer would stay from two in the afternoon until seven in the evening,” he told her biographer. “Anything about her just having a good time and not working was just bullsh*t.” Michael pays tribute to his parents when it comes to this work ethic: “They taught her how to take care of herself. We grew up in hurricane country, so we were always prepared.”

Credit: Don's Tunes

01/17/2025

Bonnie Raitt: “Someone put it best when they said, 'You can’t change the noodle, but you can change the sauce.' I play the way I play, just like I sing the way that I sing. I’m not a schooled guitar player, and I can’t say I’m getting appreciably better, but I know how to do what I do. It’s the songs that change.

“Taking risks is how I keep moving forward – that and being open to hearing things in a different way. Ultimately, I know there’s a safety net, and that’s the fact that I trust my ears and my instincts.

“I’ll always try something different. That’s how you grow, and you also don’t want to be overly influenced by an inclination to dismiss something that’s new. So, I may do something I’m not really into – out of respect for Tchad and the musicians – but if it’s not working for me after a few days of letting it sit, then I’ll go, 'We gave it a try, but this song is sucking.'”

“I look at a player’s musical vocabulary, but I also consider the kind of person they are. To me, you can’t separate who someone is from the way he or she plays. It makes complete sense to me that Jon Cleary is so badass on the keyboards, and that he also reads Graham Greene.

“I look for soul, intelligence, funk, and the ability to handle an extraordinary range of music styles. By the time I bring somebody into the fold, I already know they can do the things I need them to. I know George [Marinelli, guitarist in Raitt’s band] can do everything from Jimi Hendrix and Keith Richards to Richard Thompson, as well as being completely inventive in his own style.”

-Michael Molenda / Guitar Player
Photo: © Charlyn Zlotnik
Credit: Don's Tunes

01/15/2025

Lightnin’ Hopkins almost gave up playing the blues in the 1950s. Audiences thought his sound was a little outdated, and his career had hit a lull. But in 1959, a music historian and producer named Sam Charters came to Houston to look for Lightnin’. When Charters found him, he got Hopkins a guitar and a bottle of gin, and convinced him to cut a record.

Alan Govenar wrote the book, “Lightnin’ Hopkins: His Life and Blues,” which was published in 2010. In the book, Govenar ponders the question, Why does Lightnin’ Hopkins stick in America’s consciousness, and why has he remained there all these years after his passing?
“At the time of his death in 1982, Lightnin’ Hopkins was believed to be the most recorded blues singer in history,” Govenar says.
Govenar says Hopkins drew from a “floating encyclopedia of folk lyrics” for inspiration, allowing him to put together songs on the spot.
When Hopkins was at his lowest point in the 1950s, Govenar says the singer had severe drinking and gambling problems that impacted his ability to make music, and even to keep his guitars.
“When Sam Charters finally met him in 1959, he had an electric guitar in a pawn shop, and he had an acoustic guitar in the same pawn shop,” Govenar says.
Charters got the acoustic guitar out of hock, knowing that white audiences who were enjoying the folk revival of the late ’50s and early ’60s, wanted to hear acoustic music.

“He could tell, when Lightnin’ started to play it, that he really hadn’t played acoustic guitar in a very long time,” Govenar says.
Though Charters had given Hopkins the means to play again, it came at a price. Charters paid Hopkins far less than he was used to. Hopkins needed the money.

Govenar says the original Folkways recording Charters made, evoked a bygone era. And that was by design. He had asked Hopkins to perform old songs that he was no longer playing in his shows, but that he had heard or recorded as a much younger man.
Later in life, he played with performers who took a more free-form approach to the blues, and it affected his own work. He recorded an album (Free Form Patterns) with the 13th Floor Elevators in 1968 .
“That’s just crazy in a certain way. How this psychedelic rock band was able to tune into Lightnin’ Hopkins, and somehow they were able to create something together,” Govenar says.

Written by Shelly Brisbin, Texas Standart
Photo: David Redfern
Credit: Don's Tunes

01/12/2025

Bonnie Raitt: “I never thought of it in terms of men or women, I taught myself to play guitar because I was in love with Joan Baez’s voice, and she was also a Quaker.

“I taught myself country-blues off of records that didn’t even include women, but I didn’t think about it at the time. Dave Van Ronk, John Hammond, Jr., and (the trio) Koerner, Ray & Glover were the first people I heard who made me realize it was OK to be white and play blues, and that you weren’t (trespassing) on hallowed ground.

“Barbara Dane and Judy Roderick were two blues women in the 1960s who knocked me out. I knew about Sister Rosetta Tharpe, but a little later. Pops Staples was one of the guitar guys for me. And two of my heroes were Memphis Minnie and Sippie Wallace. I was inspired by the whole story about Minnie being a street busker and sometimes disguising herself as a man.

“I knew Aretha (Franklin) played piano, and thought it was great, because I loved the way she accompanied herself. And Ray Charles was as important to me as anybody. I learned off of records, as many of us kids did. I took piano lessons, but not guitar lessons. So I was trying to emulate how Fred McDowell, Son House and Robert Johnson played. There wasn’t any YouTube then, so I had to do it by ear!.”

Interview By George Varga
Photo credit: Oxford America
Credit: Dons Tunes

01/11/2025

Little Walter in Boston, March 1967. He was a true genius and innovator of the blues harmonica! This was from the same photo shoot as the cover of the album Hate To See You Go. Photo by Mark Powers, courtesy Rien Wisse/Block Magazine Archives. Little Walter would pass away in February of the following year at age 37.

Credit: Bob Crotorie

01/09/2025

Happy 81st birthday to Jimmy Page!
“I wanted to have my own approach to what I did. I didn’t want to … do a carbon copy of B.B. King, but I really love the blues. The blues had so much effect on me and I just wanted to make my own contribution in my own way.”

Jimmy’s story as a musician begins with the song that changed his life: Lonnie Donegan’s “Rock Island line,” a big hit in England in 1955 as performed by the Scottish-born singer. it’s an American blues to and about the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad line. It was first recorded by John and Alan Lomax in Arkansas prison, and later made famous by the Louisiana blues legend Lead Belly. Jimmy had heard Donegan’s version many times on the radio, and even owned the record, but he wasn’t inspired to pick up the guitar until the day he heard Rod Wyatt, a kid at school, play it on his. Jimmy told Rod about the guitar he had at home, and Rob promised that if Jimmy brought it in, he’d show him how to tune it and play a few chords.

“It was a campfire guitar … but it did have all the strings on it which is pretty useful because I wouldn’t have known where to get guitar strings from. And then [Rod] showed me how to tune it up … and then I started strumming away like not quite like — not quite like Lonnie Donegan, but I was having a go.”

Donegan took the past, owned the present, and influenced a generation of great rock musicians. “He really understood all that stuff, Lonnie Donegan,” Page says. “But this is the way that he sort of, should we say, jazzed it up or skiffled it up. By the time you get to the end of this he’s really spitting it out … he keeps singing ‘Rock Island line, Rock Island’ [and] you really get this whole staccato aspect of it. It’s fantastic stuff! So many guitarist from the Sixties will all say Lonnie Donegan was [their] influence.”

From Your Song Changed My Life by Bob Boilen.
Image credit: Mirrorpix
Credit: Don's Tunes

01/08/2025

on the set filming the Blues Brothers film....

Here are some fascinating facts and details about The Blues Brothers (1980):

Origins of the Characters: Jake and Elwood Blues, played by John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, were created as part of a musical sketch on Saturday Night Live. Their love for blues music was genuine, with Aykroyd being a massive fan and Belushi discovering the genre during the making of the film.

The Script's Length: Dan Aykroyd wrote the original screenplay, which was a staggering 324 pages long—three times the typical length of a film script. It included detailed backstories for every character. Director John Landis eventually trimmed it down to a more manageable format.

The Bluesmobile: The 1974 Dodge Monaco police car used in the film became an iconic symbol. The filmmakers used 13 different cars for the stunts, and one was outfitted to jump over another car—something no special effects were needed for!

The Record-Setting Budget: At $30 million, it was one of the most expensive comedies of its time. Much of the budget went toward practical stunts, car crashes (103 cars were destroyed), and the legendary musical performances.

Real Music Legends: The film features performances from blues and soul legends, including Aretha Franklin, James Brown, Ray Charles, and John Lee Ho**er. These artists didn’t just perform; their music played a critical role in moving the story forward.

Aretha Franklin's Challenges: Aretha’s scene, where she sings “Think,” took several days to film because she wasn’t used to lip-syncing her own songs. Her performance, however, became one of the most memorable moments in the movie.

Belushi's Wild Antics: John Belushi was a force of nature on set. During filming, he would often disappear, leaving the crew scrambling to find him—once, he even wandered into a nearby house and made himself a sandwich.

The Mall Scene: The shopping mall car chase was filmed at the Dixie Square Mall in Harvey, Illinois. The mall had been abandoned for over a year, and the filmmakers revitalized it, only to demolish parts of it with their stunts.

The Jailhouse Finale: The final number, “Jailhouse Rock,” featured a large crowd of real convicts and guards as extras. The energy was palpable and added authenticity to the closing scene.

Critical and Cultural Impact: Despite mixed reviews initially, the film has since gained a cult following. Its fusion of absurd comedy, thrilling action, and genuine reverence for blues music makes it a genre-defying masterpiece.

The Illinois N***s: The group of bumbling villains was a satirical take on real-life hate groups. The filmmakers wanted to lampoon them, showing them as ridiculous and deserving of disdain.

The Church Scene: James Brown’s gospel performance during Jake’s epiphany was filmed in an actual church. To make the scene pop, extras were coached to dance and react with unbridled enthusiasm.

The Blues Brothers

01/07/2025

Band Of Gypsy's was recorded as a New Year’s Eve celebration at New York’s famed, now defunct Fillmore East on December 31, 1969 and January 1, 1970 with two shows performed each night.
Jimi Hendrix’s performances under the Band Of Gypsy's name remain one of this artist’s most impressive achievements.

Having formed the short-lived group with friends and fellow musicians Billy Cox and Buddy Miles, the trio’s work has long been hailed as a touchstone of blues, funk, fusion, and rock that exemplified Hendrix’s quicksilver transition from pop phenomenon to new unchartered territories.

When Band Of Gypsy's was released, reviewers agreed that Hendrix had again upped the ante for rock – and for himself. “This album is Hendrix the musician,” Rolling Stone declared. “With just bass and drum support he is able to transfuse and transfix on the strength of his guitar work alone.” Contemporary reviews have continued to lavish praise on the album, with Classic Rock suggesting that “no testimonial can do justice to Hendrix’s revelatory fretwork.”

As it turned out, the Band Of Gypsy's outfit finished almost as soon as they began. Hendrix called time on the trio early in 1970 and realigned the Experience with Billy Cox and Mitch Mitchell for the final months of his career. Their album’s visionary sounds, however, continue to resonate.

Jimi Hendrix at TTG Studios in Hollywood, Calif., in October 1968
Chuck Boyd / © Authentic Hendrix, LLC
Credit: Don's Tunes

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WOW! 🤓 Historic B.B. King & Rufus Thomas Talk About Beale Street, Memphis TN (HQ)

What this kid can do with the blues....KingFish Ingram Live

Since the release of Kingfish, his Grammy-nominated 2019 Alligator Records debut, guitarist, vocalist and songwriter Christone “Kingfish” Ingram has quickly become the defining blues voice of his generation. From his hometown of Clarksdale, Mississippi to stages around the world, the now 22-year-old has already headlined two national tours and performed with friends including Vampire Weekend, Jason Isbell and Buddy Guy (with whom he appeared on Austin City Limits). He was interviewed by Sir Elton John on his Apple Music podcast, Rocket Hour, and recently released a duet with Bootsy Collins. In January 2021, Ingram was simultaneously on the covers of both Guitar World and DownBeat magazines, and graced the cover of Living Blues in late 2020. Rolling Stone declared, “Kingfish is one of the most exciting young guitarists in years, with a sound that encompasses B.B. King, Jimi Hendrix and Prince.” In the two years since Kingfish was released, there have been major events that have altered his life both personally and professionally. “There has been much change, happiness and despair in my life,” Ingram says of his last two years. Right as his career was taking off, he lost his mother and biggest champion, the late Princess Pride Ingram. Christone toured for 13 months non-stop, until the pandemic halted live performances and forced him to take stock. As he was thinking about the man he was becoming and the new directions his life was taking, he began writing songs for his next album, 662. The number 662 is the telephone area code for Ingram’s northern Mississippi home, and it first came into use the same year he was born—1999. “The world was introduced to me with Kingfish,” Ingram says of his chart-topping debut. “Now with 662, I want the world to hear and meet a different, more personal side of me.” The album—recorded in Nashville and co-written and produced (as was Kingfish) by Grammy-winner Tom Hambridge—features 13 songs displaying many

Lightning Hopkins with Cleveland Chennier - Rare HQ

The video captures Hopkins in his element, performing at what appears to be his house with his signature fingerpicking style and emotive vocal accompanied by the scraping and scrubbing rhythms of Cleveland Chenier'. This video is a rare gem and a must-see for any fan of Lightnin' Hopkins or the blues in general. It captures the essence of Hopkins as a performer and a musician and it is a testament to his enduring legacy. It's a real joy to see such a great artist in his prime, bringing his music to life on stage. Read more: https://www.rootsthatrock.com/post/lightnin-hopkins-rare-footage-resurfaces-video

Son House - Grinnin in Your Face

Son House was an American Delta blues musician, active in the 1930s and 1940s. He was known for his distinctive style of fingerpicking and slide guitar playing. He recorded several tracks for the Library of Congress in the early 1940s, which were later released as an album "Goodbye, Babe" in 1992. Not much is known about his personal life and background, and he remains a relatively obscure figure in the history of blues music.

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WOW! Rare B.B. King & Rufus Thomas Talk About Beale Street, Memphis TN (HQ)

What this kid can do with the blues....KingFish Ingram Live

Lightning Hopkins with Cleveland Chennier - Rare HQ

Son House - Grinnin in Your Face

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