Byther Caught the Last Train

One afternoon in 1995, I was in the blues section of the Tower Records in Torrance, my town in the South Bay of L.A. This CD cover riveted me – a black and red design with a grainy photo of a man in a fedora, suit and tie, holding a Stratocaster and looking out into […]

Blues Birthday – B.B. King, Sept 16th 1925

Riley B. King (September 16, 1925 – May 14, 2015), known professionally as B.B. King, was an American blues singer-songwriter, guitarist, and record producer. He introduced a sophisticated style of soloing based on fluid string bending, shimmering vibrato and staccato picking that influenced many later blues electric guitar players. AllMusic recognized King as “the single […]

Blues Birthday – Snooky Pryor, Sept 15th 1919

James Edward “Snooky” Pryor (September 15, 1919 or 1921 – October 18, 2006) was an American Chicago blues harmonica player. He claimed to have pioneered the now-common method of playing amplified harmonica by cupping a small microphone in his hands along with the harmonica, although on his earliest records, in the late 1940s, he did […]