News & Updates — soul!

Blues harp icon Little Walter Jacobs influenced nearly every single blues and rock harmonica player that came after him, Junior Wells included. He was hugely popular in the '50s with his loose & jazzy updates of old blues tunes, as well as original compositions hitting the charts and attaining worldwide popularity. Born and raised in Louisiana, he quit school at 12 to busk and work in various cities in the South, playing with Honeyboy Edwards and Sunnyland Slim along the way before hitting the Windy City in '45. Chicago, being the loud & buzzing town that it was, forced Walter...

Forever associated with James Brown as one of his funky divas, Marva Whitney is fondly remembered for her raw vocal attack on some of the funkiest records ever made. From Kansas City, she came up in a gospel-singing family, performing as early as 1947 when she was three years old. She sang in R&B bands locally until '67. After rejecting offers to tour with Bobby "Blue" Bland and Little Richard, she signed on to join the James Brown Revue, which included her own featured set. She toured the world with JB (including Vietnam and Africa) and had a romantic relationship...

The great Nuyorican percussionist, bandleader and composer Ray Barretto (Mr Hard Hands) retains a huge legacy, greatly influencing many percussionists and Latino jazz artists, and standing as a towering figure in the landscape of salsa music. He was checking out the bebop scene in the late '40s and honing his chops before getting the tap to play with Charlie Parker. He then worked in Tito Puente's band for four years in the late '50s. In the '60s he was a first-call percussionist for sessions at various jazz labels (Blue Note, Prestige, Riverside, etc), as well as playing with Herbie Mann....

Singer and songwriter Tammi Terrell's star burned bright in her short career, one marked by abuse and tragedy yet she remains a popular artist 45 years after her death. From Philadelphia, two things happened that would positively and negatively affect her life: she was found to have immense talent and was also often subdued by intense migraine headaches (the latter of which started happening after she was raped by neighborhood boys, later convicted, at 11). She hit the road as a teenager with Patti LaBelle and Gary US Bonds and recorded for Wand and Chess Records subsidiary Checker. She sang...

Happy birthday to the great and influential bluesman Albert King, one of my all time favorites. I saw him play back in the '80s when I was a kid and it left a HUGE impression on me. A major guitar figure (who was a left-hander playing "backwards") and an excellent singer, he was born in the Mississippi Delta area. His first professional gigs were in Arkansas and he eventually moved North. Some of his earliest recordings were as a drummer for Jimmy Reed. He had limited success in the '50s in Chicago & St Louis but really found his fame...