Blues You Should Know goes True Crime! Two programs about actual crimes enshrined in the blues. In Pt.1 we listened to different versions of a single case: the murder of Wm. Lyons by "Stack" Lee Shelton. In Pt.2 we check out several different crimes, from the 1890's through the 1950's. All true and all sung about by Blues Singers including John Hurt, Bukka White, Chuck Willis, & Eric Bibb. Always free and available on your favorite podcast platform.

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Blues You Should Know goes True Crime! Two programs about actual crimes enshrined in the blues. Program #1 focuses on a single crime: the  murder of William Lyons by  "Stag" Lee Shelton, in St. Louis, MO, on Christmas 1895. How is it that a 130 year-old crime has become so embedded in our national zeitgeist? Over 502 different performers have recorded songs about “Stagolee”. Obviously, we won’t play all of them but we’ll tell the real story of what happened as opposed to some of the fanciful versions that have appeared in song over the years. Available on your favorite podcast platform and always free. 

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This 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 Cleveland area. He had not yet put together his own band. Robert talks about himself (Robert never had problems with self-esteem), and many of the people he worked with over the years including Sonny Boy Williamson, Little Walter, Robert Johnson, Howlin' Wolf, Lester Melrose, and Doctor Clayton. This program may be a bit esoteric, but I believe it's an historically significant document that deserves and needs to be heard. A special thanks goes out to the late Nick Amster, who paid to have someone go through a large box of reel-to-reel tapes to find the one that had this interview on it. 

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The 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 favorite podcast platform. 

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Do 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 Grosso.  Always free and available on your favorite podcast platform. 

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In 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 a decline in his health and his eventual death in 1970. Lonnie leaves a legacy of revolutionary guitar playing, brilliant songwriting, and superb singing. Hear why BB King called him the most influential guitar player EVER. Blues You Should Know is always free and available on all major podcast platforms and through the Blues You Should Know website. 

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Lonnie 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 (microphone) recording, lasted through parts of six decades and included multiple comebacks. Part 1 covers his life, carreer and recordings through the recording ban of the Second World War. 

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One 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 well, and Long made many more subsequent trips with Fuller and other artists including Floyd Council and Brownie McGee. With Fuller, Long acted as a manager and collaborator, insisting that Fuller continue writing original songs, often polishing them and finishing the lyrics himself. Long never received any pay for his work other than reimbursement for auto expenses. 

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One 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 well, and Long made many more subsequent trips with Fuller and other artists including Floyd Council and Brownie McGee. With Fuller, Long acted as a manager and collaborator, insisting that Fuller continue writing original songs, often polishing them and finishing the lyrics himself. Long never received any pay for his work other than reimbursement for auto expenses. 

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Known 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. 

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Every 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 standard, Those Lonely, Lonely Nights, and he's said to have written the classic Big Chief, a tribute to his mother, a well-known Mardi Gras figure. 

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Every 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 guitarist/bandleader Carlos Santana. Get the whole story here on Blues You Should Know. 

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We 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 course, Mr. Stress. Check 'em out of this episode of Blues You Should Know, always free and available on your favorite podcast platform.

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While 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-influenced blues of a Howlin' Wolf or John Lee Hooker; it's more of festive, dance-oriented blues, but it's still great music and a lot of fun. 

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According 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. 

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Blues 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! Plus, some final words on the legacy of King Records and some great stories about King's founder and president Syd Nathan. Seven parts just couldn't contain all the great music that came out of King Records so here is part 7.1 

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Here 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!

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Part 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. 

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There 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. 

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King 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 artistic high point for this classic American genre. 

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The 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.

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As 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. 

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We 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, the Stanley Bros. and James Brown (whew, now THAT'S eclectic!) so stick with us. 

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The 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.

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Here'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. 

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What 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. 

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In 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!

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In 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!

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At 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. 

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Enter 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. 

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Our 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. 

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For 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. 

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Robert 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, but not for lack of talent. 

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Well 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 so deeper than the most popular performers most folks come to know and listen to when they first discover this wonderful music. 

 So, we won’t be doing shows on BB King, or Stevie Ray, though they may come up in the course of a program. What you will hear are shows about some of the people who influenced THEM. In addition, there’ll be theme programs about people who contributed to the music behind the scenes; people like Lillian McMurray, the genteel southern lady who owned and operated Trumpet Records in Mississippi and recorded the likes of Sonny Boy Williamson and Elmore James. There’ll be a multi- part series on Cincinnati’s great eclectic record label King Records, with its colorfully irascible and cantankerous owner Syd Nathan. 

 But most of all, you’re going to hear a lot of really great music along with some great stories to go along with it. Most of it will be blues, but you will hear some other things as well…when they fit the story. 

 So I hope you’ll give these podcasts a listen. And if you enjoy the programs, I hope you’ll give us a like or few kind words in a review. I’m Bob Frank, and this is “Blues You Should Know”.

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Many 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. 

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Skip 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...

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 The 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” children, is the Tina Turner Museum.  Immediately nextdoor, and also maintained as a public attraction, is the tiny home, a cottage or really a shack, once lived in by Brownsville’s other great artist, the blues singer Sleepy John Estes. Both Estes and Turner, by the way, actually grew up in Ripley aka./Nutbush, an unincorporated community adjacent to Brownsville once populated almost exclusively by black residents. 

 At the time of Tina Turner’s birth in 1939, Sleep John, born either in 1899 or 1900-no one’s really sure, was already in the middle of a recording and performing career that extended from 1929 right up to his death in 1977. 

 As a child in Ripley/Nutbush, John, like so many bluesmen before and after him, helped out on his family’s share-crop cotton farm and tried to pick out tunes on a homemade cigar box guitar. After a particularly productive season his mother awarded John for his hard work on the farm by buying him a real guitar. 

 For the first decade or so of his musical career, John, along with his “Brownsville Gang” which included harmonica player Hammie Nixon, mandolinist Yank Rachell, jug and piano player Jab Jones, and guitarists Son Bonds and Charlie Pickett, performed and traveled throughout the Western Tennesssee area often performing in Memphis. 

 In 1929 Victor Records talent scout Ralph Peer arranged for John’s first recording session, a three-day affair, which produced one of his most well known songs Diving Duck Blues as well as five others. Legend has it that the gang followed the sessions with a week long binge of drinking, gambling and whoring in West Memphis, the wide-open mostly black community located just across the river from Memphis proper. 

 The following year, 1930 saw John and his gang recording another fourteen songs. John, it seemed, was a highly prolific songwriter. 

 Three things distinguish the music of Sleepy John Estes. First, was his guitar playing. It wasn’t very good. Many have described his playing as “thrashing”. But while John certainly wasn’t in a class with virtuosos like Blind Blake or Big Bill Broonzy, his playing did have a strong propulsive quality that served his music well.  He usually played in standard tuning in the key of G, or in G position with a capo. 

 Second, was his “crying” vocal style that made him sound like an old man long before he was one. 

 The final quality that sets his music apart and was his songwriting; his ability to craft a musical story. While many of John’s songs concern the usual blues subject matter, ie whiskey and women, John was also a chronicler of people and events around him. He wrote about people he knew, people he worked for, people he dealt with and people he admired. 

 In Liquor Store Blues John sings his admiration for the man he buys hootch from:

 Now if you're ever in Forrest City, I'll tell you what to do
Let Mr. Peter Adams get acquainted with you
Well, you won't have to go, well, you won't have to go
You can get what you want, oh, right here in my liquor store

 In Brownsville Blues, John sings the praises of local mechanic Vassar Williams:

 Now, he can straighten your wires, you know Vassar can grind your valves
Now, he can straighten your wires

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Blues 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.

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Name 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. 

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Magic 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. 

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He 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. 

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