Speckled Red (Rufus Perryman, 1892-1973) was one of the most irrepressible and enthusiastic proponents of barrel-house piano, a style born of rowdy roadhouses and closely associated with boogie-woogie but louder and more raucous. Red-born in Georgia and well traveled-was a self-taught player, never letting the finer points of the correct chord interfere with his own enthusiasm for the music. This collection of originals, Red's only collection on Folkways, showcases his singing and rhythmic approach to the keyboard. Red provides introductions to most of his tunes, offering further insight into the artist. The liner notes further explain the nuances of barrel-house piano.

The blind folk, gospel and blues musician made it to New York from South Carolina and made a name for himself as the "Harlem Street Singer." a Baptist minister and a teacher, Gary Davis was also an accomplished and influential vocalist, guitarist, and harmonica player. He was seventy years old at the time of this recording. "We Are the Heavenly Father's Children" is re-mastered and re-released on If I Had My Way: Early Home Recordings(SFW40123).

The Blues is life and life is the Blues. It covers from the first cry of a newborn to the last gasp of a dying man. It's the very existence." And Victoria Spivey took the blues business very seriously, from her many recording contracts to her performance schedule. These thirteen original compositions were written specifically for this recording, and range from a "No Friends Blues" or a "Slick Chick Blues" to a "Humble Blues" and even "A Sausage Blues.

The music on this recording is at once far-reaching and intimate. It has a quality enjoyed well beyond contemporary fans of this style of music, and yet this recording gives the listener the sense of being privy to a very precise moment in music history with Memphis Slim (1915-1988) as he plays piano. Slim (born Peter Chatman) grew up listening to his father perform blues in various venues in Memphis, Tennessee. He started performing around town at a young age before moving to Chicago at 25. He is accompanied on this album- the third of his four recordings for Folkways Records - by Arnold "Jump" Jackson (drums) and Arbee Stidham (guitar). The liner notes feature a biography of Slim by music critic Martin Williams.

Peter Chatman Jr.., aka Memphis Slim, stomps out a "progressive boogie and blues" on the piano. Self-taught in the honky-tonk juke joints of Tennessee, he produced some of the most powerful boogie-woogie out there, with an incessant bass like you wouldn't believe.

This fascinating album of storytelling and music includes some of minstrel, composer, businessman, and bluesman Perry Bradford's best-known works, including "That Thing Called Love," the first song ever recorded by Mamie Smith for Okeh Records in 1920. Singer Noble Sissle's interview with Bradford provides narration for this selection of songs.

There is no single kind of music that led to the creation of Jazz. Instead, the genre evolved, and continues to evolve, from diverse musical avenues. Following the popularity of swing music in the 1930's, Boogie Woogie-with it's characteristic walking bass pattern-captivated audiences and dancers. Performed by pianists like Count Basie and Meade Lux Lewis, this exciting rhythm provides-as Basie said-"four heavy beats to a bar, and no cheating."

Moses Asch purchased the "race records" heard on this album in 1941 for 15 cents each. Demonstrating some of the musical styles characteristic of the American South that proved influential in shaping what is now called Jazz, the selections range from folk songs to urban blues to boogie-woogie piano; artists include Dock Reese, Lead Belly, Scrapper Blackwell, Bessie Tucker and Champion Jack Dupree.

Charles Edward Smith, author of the album's notes, writes, "Few singers evoke as forcefully as Brownie the many-sidedness of heritage... sentiment and sex, humor and the solar plexus shots of bitter and broken, worried and lonely blues." But let Brownie's music, in all it's eloquence, speak for itself.

This album presents a variety of blues, and in Brownie McGhee's singing are echoes of work and dance songs, as well as spirituals. Brownie himself once said, "I want to make music the way I know is real," and the blues on this collection exemplify his honest, powerful style.

This album features big-voiced blues pianist and singer Memphis Slim and legendary bassist Willie Dixon, who is credited with having helped create the Chicago blues sound. Several tracks from this album are also included on Smithsonian Folkways' Memphis Slim: The Folkways Years (SFW40128).

As a youth in North Carolina, Sonny Terry-who lost his sight during his teen years-never imagined he'd eventually find fame as a musician on record, at festivals, and on Broadway in the musical, Finian's Rainbow. This album presents Terry's fine music, and the liner notes include elaborate stories of his life.

This album by harmonica player Sonny Terry and guitarist Brownie McGhee, with Coyal McMahan on maracas features traditional blues songs, spirituals, and originals by the three singer-instrumentalists. Each musician has his own distinctive style, and together they create a sound that is simultaneously melancholy and joyful.

Blind harmonica player and singer Sonny Terry recorded a few records during the 1930s and 1940s, but found wider fame in the folk revival of the 1950s and 1960s. This recording features a washboard band-an ensemble that includes washboard, washtub bass (a development from the African earth bow), bones, and sometimes guitar, or as heard here, harmonica.

While recording in the South in the early 1960s, producer, writer, and music historian Samuel Charters was inspired not only by the sound of Furry Lewis's guitar, but by the patterns of movement in his hands and fingers as he played. Thus Charters decided to make a film that would document aspects of the blues that couldn't be put on a phonograph record. In the sweltering summer of 1962, Charters journeyed through St. Louis, Memphis, Louisiana, and South Carolina to shoot the film the Blues and record this soundtrack. Artists featured in addition to Lewis are J.D. Short, Baby Tate, and Sleepy John Estes. Liner notes include details of the making of the film and biographies of the artists.

In the spring of 1965 pianist Don Ewell began his four-week engagement in Toronto that lasted seven months. David Gillman, a jazz fan and one-time promoter, started hanging at the Golden Nugget and was reminded of another stride legend Willie "The Lion" Smith who he had presented in the '40s. Fast forward to '66, Gillman brings Ewell and Smith together for a Canadian TV filming. While in town the two jam together often at the Nugget and informal, live recordings are made (issued as Stride Piano Duets, DMK 249). The following year the two are brought together into a recording studio and this album is the astonishing result.

DELMARK'S 70th ANNIVERSARY BLUES ANTHOLOGY Featuring 10 of the finest tracks from the Delmark blues music vaults. Seventy years on, Delmark is the oldest independent jazz and blues record label in the world, boasting a catalog bulging with over twelve thousand recordings by a virtual who's who of jazz and blues.� Although Bob Koester retired in 2018, under the leadership of President/CEO, Julia A. Miller and Artistic Director�Elbio Barilari, Delmark has released over 30 thirty albums in five years, has made digitally available over twelve thousand songs and continues it's mission.

Now in his 90s, this enduring Chicago blues great entered the studio to create his first album in a decade-and it's on Delmark, for whom he first recorded 40 years ago! His Delmark homecoming blends his originals with takes on some classics: "I Need You So Bad," "My Ring," "Lead Me On," "Love Me or Leave Me," "Rattlesnake" and more blues with that trademark Jimmy Johnson R&B flavor. Delmark.

The Heat is turned up again for another chapter in the 25-year history of Pierre Lacocque's Mississippi Heat. The Living Blues review of their previous album said "Warning Shot (DMK 839) showcases bandleader and principal songwriter Lacocque's eloquent harp playing, supported by a cast of heavy hitters that delivers the trademark big band sound and one of the hottest, tightest bands in Chicago today, and the original songs on this album are pure fun and are worthy additions to the great history of Chicago blues." Cab Driving Man features 15 new songs with Inetta Visor and Michael Dotson as lead vocalists again. The songs are a wonderful blend of Mississippi, Chicago, boogie, swing and south of the border.

Mike Wheeler Band - CD - "TURN UP" - Delmark Records - Mike Wheeler: "Mike Wheeler has been a fixture on the Chicago blues scene for almost 30 years and his eloquent Delmark debut. Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. Look up on the stage. It's SuperMike, who can change the course of mighty rivers, bend steel strings with his bare hands, and who, disguised in Chicago sports caps as mild-mannered average guy, fights a never-ending battle for blues, soul and the true funktified way. In 2012 Delmark released Self Made Man. In his Living Blues magazine review David Whiteis wrote "Wheeler's music virtually explodes with affirmation... Throughout, Wheeler's solos resonate with the joy of exploration and discovery, as well as with emotional power." This new album features 12 new originals including "You Won't Do Right", "Brand New Cadillac" and the burning title track., TURN UP !!

HOOCHIE COOCHIE MAN IN MONTREAL

SEEMS LIKE YESTERDAY - COLLECTORS CLASSICS

Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee are considered the odd couple of the blues world. Both had different back grounds musically, both had different styles of music they played, and their on stage outbursts and arguments were completely real. But this competitiveness kept them true to their art and neither of them compromised, which led to a surprisingly long 40 year career together. WALK ON was recorded live in Montreal on July 22, 1980, and this collectors disc features bonus tracks by Lightnin' Hopkins and Louisiana Red who both performed at the same show that day.

MIDNIGHT CREEPER

Blues guitarist Tab Benoit, born and raised in Louisniana, may be a relative newcomer to the region's rich and centuries old musical history but he's clearly a product and a disciple, of the same multicultural aestheic. This album is a contemporary bluesman's nod to a Cajun and Zydeco elements embedded in the Louisiana blues story.