Your local front porch for all things blues-worthy!

Blues Birthday of the month - August

John Lee Hooker - 22nd August 1917

John Lee Hooker (August 22, 1917 -June 21, 2001) was an American blues singer-songwriter and guitarist, born near Clarksdale, Mississippi. Hooker began his life as the son of a sharecropper, William Hooker, and rose to prominence performing his own unique style of what was originally closest to Delta blues. He developed a 'talking blues' style that was his trademark. Though similar to the early Delta blues, his music was metrically free. John Lee Hooker could be said to embody his own unique genre of the blues, often incorporating the boogie-woogie piano style and a driving rhythm into his masterful and idiosyncratic blues guitar and singing. His best known songs include "Boogie Chillen" (1948) and "Boom Boom" (1962).

Hooker's life experiences were chronicled by several scholars and often read like a classic case study in the racism of the music industry, although he eventually rose to prominence with memorable songs and influence on a generation of musicians.

Hooker's guitar playing is closely aligned with piano boogie-woogie. He would play the walking bass pattern with his thumb, stopping to emphasize the end of a line with a series of trills, done by rapid hammers-on and pulls-off. The songs that most epitomize his early sound are "Boogie Chillen", about being 17 and wanting to go out to dance at the Boogie clubs, "Baby Please Don't Go", a blues standard first recorded by Big Joe Williams, and "Tupelo Blues", a stunningly sad song about the flooding of Tupelo, Mississippi in April 1936.

He maintained a solo career, popular with blues and folk music fans of the early 1960s and crossed over to white audiences, giving an early opportunity to the young Bob Dylan. As he got older, he added more and more people to his band, changing his live show from simply Hooker with his guitar to a large band, with Hooker singing.

His vocal phrasing was less closely tied to specific bars than most blues singers. This casual, rambling style had been gradually diminishing with the onset of electric blues bands from Chicago but, even when not playing solo, Hooker retained it in his sound.

Though Hooker lived in Detroit during most of his career, he is not associated with the Chicago-style blues prevalent in large northern cities, as much as he is with the southern rural blues styles, known as delta blues, country blues, folk blues, or "front porch blues". His use of an electric guitar tied together the Delta blues with the emerging post-war electric blues.

His songs have been covered by Cream, AC/DC, ZZ Top, Led Zeppelin, Tom Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Van Morrison, The Yardbirds, The Animals, Buddy Guy, The Doors, The White Stripes, MC5, George Thorogood, R. L. Burnside, The J. Geils Band, The Wheels, The Gories, Big Head Todd and the Monsters and The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion.

 

'the bbc' -it's a blues EDUCATION!

Home | Latest | Looking Back | Blues in Schools | Reviews | Looking Forward | The Blues | Heidi's Hall of Fame

Bronte Blues Hall of Fame

2009 Awards ......they were announced on 8th January 2010 -

Hamilton Loomis was delighted, on 26th March, to receive his 'bbc best-of ' awards for 'Best Electric Guitarist' and 'Best Band' in 2009

Picture -Charles Waller

Best Drummer – Mark Matthews (Revolutionaires)

 Best Instrumentalist (other) –Harper (Didgeridoo)

 Best Harpist –Johnny Mars    

Best Bassist- Akos Hasznos (Ramon Goose Band)

 Best Keyboardist – Ben Waters       Best Guitarist (Acoustic) – Toby Walker

 Best Guitarist (Electric) –Hamilton Loomis        Best Vocalist – Kyla Brox

 Best Dressed Band –The Revolutionaires     Best Solo Artist –Ben Waters

 Best Acoustic Act –Toby Walker     Best Band –Hamilton Loomis Band

"That's fantastic news!! What a wonderful way to start off our morning. I'd be delighted if you could send those certificates to us... we'll be sure to frame them on the wall. Please extend my thanks to all of the members of the Bronte Blues Club."  (Toby Walker)

"That's Awesome...I wish I was with you guys over there right now! "(Harper)

Hall of Fame 2008 - Bronte Blues Club's First Annual Awards

Pictures by Charles Waller shows Roach & Mars receiving their award in February 2009 and Doug MacLeod receiving his in June.

In December, members voted for the best acts of 2008.. RESULTS WERE ANNOUNCED ON 9th JANUARY!

"You can't judge a book by looking at the cover....."

Birthday presents for your blues-loving loved ones?

Branwell’s A-Z of the blues

A  Aaron ‘T-Bone’ Walker- The King of West Coast Swing; innovative blues guitarist.

B- Bessie Smith – the ‘Empress of the Blues’; raunchy and regal.

C  Chess Records -the Chicago label that defined blues-as-we-know it; Wolf, Waters ‘n’ more.

D  Delta Blues – down home country blues, often featuring acoustic slide guitar.

E  Eric Clapton- the epitome of white blues-guitar heroes; his heart is in it!

F  Freddie Below – possibly the greatest blues drummer ever.

G Gospel Music -the spiritual sister music to the secular blues

   Buddy Guy – longstanding guitar hero idolised by GB bluesmen.

H  Howling Wolf – primeval life-force was Muddy’s greatest rival.

I   Illinois –Chicago was the ‘promised land’ for black musicians from the southern USA.

J  Jimmy Reed- the ‘Big Boss Man’ was a ‘one-trick-pony’ but an extremely popular one in the 1960s.

K   King; BB, Freddie & Albert – three influential electric blues guitar namesakes

      Keb Mo – Grammy-winning popular contemporary singer/songwriter bluesman          

L  ‘Lemon Jefferson’ – this blind Texan wrote the blueprint for acoustic bluesmen.

M  Memphis Slim –urbane piano bluesman,

    Muddy Waters - from sharecropping to King of Chicago, the original Hoochie Coochie Man.

N   Nu Blues – modern UK blues-rock-sample hybrid. It’s new but is it blues?

O – Otis Redding ; not a bluesman? Listen to the self-penned ‘Hawg for You’

P  Paul Jones – from pop singer to UK blues guru; to appear on his show is to have ‘arrived’ in the UK

Q   ‘Queen of Soul’ – Aretha Franklin’s blues tracks, such as Dr. Feelgood, are a revelation.

R   Ray Charles – much feted singer/ pianist credited with the invention of soul-music.

     Robert Johnson – the most covered Delta bluesman artist ever?

S   Soul Music- what urban blues became in the 1960s

    Sonny Boy Willamson II – ‘Rice Millar’ was a harp player extremely influential on the ‘British Blues Boom’.

T  Ike Turner – Tina’s revelation of marital strife masked his huge contribution to R’n’B music.

U Underground sound – Blues/ R’n’B was the hip music for the 60’s in crowd.

V Victoria Spivey – top singer-songwriter-pianist of the St Louis jazz-blues era.

W  Willie Dixon – Chicago bass-man and songwriter without equal

X  Crossover Hit - to have a hit record in the ‘White Chart’ was a crock of gold for artistes on the ‘chitling circuit’.

Y J immy Yancy – Chicago-born blues pianist of the first decade of 20^th C.

Z  Z Z Top – 12 bar blues-rock with beards. Blues for rednecks?

 ©MF

Site under re-construction