News & Updates — blues

The first "folk" guitarist I got really into was John Fahey and his curious Takoma albums. Fahey's music combined blues, country, classical, avant-garde and finger-pickin' roots styles and other international folk musics all together. From dissonant to haunting, country blues to modal epics, it covered a lot worth hearing. Takoma was his label, started with money saved from his gas-pumping gig and it went on to be a very influential independent label, releasing many classics not only by Fahey, but also records by Bukka White, Robbie Basho, Leo Kottke, Canned Heat, Charlie Nothing, Bola Sete, George Winston and others. He...

A birthday shout-out to the Man In Black, Johnny Cash! He was the first "country" artist I ever respected and I always loved his baritone voice and shuffling-yet-soulful '50s tunes. The fact that he did concerts for incarcerated people, opposed the Vietnam war and included topics (and actions) in respect to indigenous culture gave him a lot of real cred, in my opinion. His music had just the right amounts of country, rockabilly, gospel, blues, folk and even mariachi and he totally OWNED that Nine Inch Nails song. There was nothing artsy about his style, just a direct approach with...

Sandy Bull was one of my favorites of the '60s/'70s "folk" musicians, although his music was much, much more than your typical "folkie" thing. Playing a variety of stringed instruments (guitar, banjo, oud, pedal steel, etc), his music was informed by various international folk traditions, modal jazz, Indian ragas, classical, blues, gospel, psychedelia and even Chuck Berry! He sometimes had percussionists (such as Billy Higgins or Denis Charles) as well as his own system of live tape overdubs and rhythm-machines. Check out his early Vanguard albums for some early excursions into psychedelic world fusion! Bull's 1963 debut, Fantasias For Guitar...

The "Jimi Hendrix of the accordion", Steve Jordan in fact claimed to play 35 instruments (he even played guitar in Willie Bobo's band in the mid-'60s!). He was also a good singer and could even play the cello. He was born to migrant farm workers in Texas and learned accordion as a partially-blind kid, becoming professional at a very young age although he didn't record until the late '50s. He recorded some great soul, blues and even doo-wop early on (check out his version of "Ain't No Big Thing" by The Radiants). He took his conjunto's music and fused it...

Happy birthday to the great Nina Simone!! Pianist, singer, anti-war and civil rights activist, an inspiration to generations. This great talent from North Carolina captivated everyone that came in her path or heard her music. A gifted arranger, she could take any tune, or combination of tunes, and turn them into epic statements. Her music melded gospel, jazz, classical, blues and pop, with the clear purpose of many politicized folk artists of her day. Born Eunice Waymon, she aspired to be a pioneering black concert pianist and only reluctantly became a jazz singer after racist rejection from a prestigious school....