Most important artists
Ray Charles Robinson was born in Georgia in 1930. He was a musician that mixed rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues (Atlantic Records, 50s). He was also really good at country music and Frank Sinatra used to say that he was ‘the only true genius in show business’. He became a pretty influential musician and received several awards, such as a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and The National Medal of Arts.
Bessie Smith, born in Tennessee in 1894, is known as the ‘Empress of the Blues’. She became the most popular female blues singer in the 20s and 30s and she recorded several versions of songs (St. Louis Blues). George Melly, an English jazz singer, was deeply inspired by her.
'B.B. King, known as the ‘King of Blues’, is considered one of the most influential musicians of all time. He introduced a different soloing style, more sophisticated, which was based on fluid string bending and shimmering vibrato. This style would influence a lot of later blues guitar players.
Robert Leroy Johnson, also known as the ‘King of the Delta Blues’, was an American singer and guitarist. He belongs to that group of musicians who died at 27 and during his life he was mostly a street performer. Guitarist Eric Clapton called him ‘the most important blues singer that ever lived’.
John Lee Hooker, born in 1917 in Mississippi, was one of the most important blues musicians of the 20th century. He was a sharecropper who mixed popular blues songs with a slower talking blues styles (such as his hits Boogie Chillen, I'm in the Mood and Boom Boom). "I don't play a lot of fancy guitar. The kind I play is mean, mean licks," he said. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Muddy Waters is known as the ‘father of modern Chicago blues’. He was a true inspiration for the British blues explosion that took place in the 60s. . He took part in Martin Scorsese's film ‘The Last Waltz’ in 1978.
Otis Spann, from the Chicago Blues scene, was considered one of the best blues piano players of all time. He collaborated with B.B King, Muddy Waters, Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy, Big Mama Thornton, Peter Green and Fleetwood Mac among others.