Blues Birthday – Roy Buchanan, Sept 23rd 1939

Leroy “Roy” Buchanan (September 23, 1939 – August 14, 1988) was an American guitarist and blues musician. A pioneer of the Telecaster sound, Buchanan worked as a sideman and as a solo artist, with two gold albums early in his career and two later solo albums that made it to the Billboard chart. Highly Influential […]

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 […]

Julian Piper Memorial Festival to be held on Sunday 10th October

The Julian Piper Memorial Festival, to be held at The Exeter Phoenix on Sunday 10th October 2021, is an all day festival of Blues & Roots to celebrate and remember the extraordinary life of Topsham born British blues guitarist, writer, promoter and record producer Julian Piper. Described in The Guardian as ‘one of the UK’s […]