Η Φωτογραφία της ημέρας.

[The Rebel]

Bo Diddley.



“The Bo Diddley Beat”
“Bo Diddley is much more than a name; rather, Bo Diddley is a legacy and musical style that has impacted the world’s take on music. Bo Diddley began to solidify his unique sound after picking up the guitar by reconstructing his musical equipment, such as his amplifier and his tremolo unit, which he made from various car parts and other household mechanisms. These adjustments complemented his violin-like techniques that featured distorted and muted string sounds.

This sound was first featured on the song recording “Bo Diddley,” and it uses a combination of maracas and guitar. Coined by Ellas McDaniel, the Bo Diddley Beat is a two-measure, syncopated pattern. This beat was similar to “ham boning,” also known as “Pattin’ Juba,” a traditional African American slapping rhythm. This musical technique allowed musicians to create different rhythms by hitting different body parts to create various sounds and tones. It can also be found in the roots of African-Cuban music.” - National Blues Museum.

[The Rebel]

Sleepy John Estes.



“Blues guitarist and singer Sleepy John Estes was born into a family of sharecroppers on January 25, 1904. His nickname came via an accident: He lost an eye in a baseball game in his teens, and subsequently had a cast eye, which made “Sleepy” a natural choice of nickname.”

Spoiler

“Musically, Estes got his start playing his home-made cigar box guitar at picnics and house parties around Brownsville, Tennessee. By the mid-1920’s, he was playing on the street of Memphis, frequently partnering with Hamie Nixon, a harmonica and jug player, and James “Yank” Rachel on mandolin.”

“Sleepy John Estes recorded the first of a dozen sides in Memphis in 1929 for Victor. Two years later, Estes and Nixon traveled to Chicago, playing on street corners and at house rent parties. By 1935, he was recording for Decca, cutting over 30 titles before 1940, including “Drop Down Mama.” Early in 1942, he moved back to Brownsville. It was here that he lost the sight in his good eye in 1949. Nonetheless, in 1952 he was back in Memphis, cutting six sides for Sam Phillips’ Sun Records; unfortunately, tastes had changed and they went unreleased.”

“At 53 years old, Estes returned again to Brownsville, surely thinking that his career must be over. But ten years later in Saukville, Wisconsin, he was back in the studio, recording, and soon he was playing to the new devotees of folk blues on the university circuit. Two years later he was at the Newport Folk Festival and touring Europe as part of the American Folk Blues Festival. He recorded extensively during the 1960’s, working with Mike Bloomfield in 1963. During the early 1970’s Rachel, Nixon, and Estes performed throughout America, as well as in Europe and Japan. Sleepy John Estes died in 1977.” - Richard Havers (udiscovermusic).

[The Rebel]

Willie Dixon.



Blues legend Willie Dixon was born on this day back in 1915! (July 1st, 1915).
Mr. Dixon was best known for being one of the most prolific song writers of his time.

Spoiler

“Dixon's songs have been recorded by countless musicians in many genres as well as by various ensembles in which he participated. A short list of his most famous compositions includes "Hoochie Coochie Man", "I Just Want to Make Love to You", "Little Red Rooster", "My Babe", "Spoonful", and "You Can't Judge a Book by the Cover". These songs were written during the peak years of Chess Records, from 1950 to 1965, and were performed by Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter, and Bo Diddley; they influenced a generation of musicians worldwide.”

“Dixon was an important link between the blues and rock and roll, working with Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley in the late 1950s. In the 1960s, his songs were adapted by numerous rock artists. He received a Grammy Award and was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the Songwriters Hall of Fame”.

[The Rebel]

Henry Townsend.



"Born in Mississippi and raised in Cairo, Ill., Henry Townsend fled his abusive father on a boxcar to St. Louis at age 9. Unlike most of the blues musicians he played with during the 1930s, he never migrated to Chicago. He stayed here, recording on guitar and piano for nearly eight decades, from his first thick 78 record in 1929 till his death at age 96 in 2006. (He even had a MySpace profile.) He was nicknamed Mule for his sturdy build and nature, and he played with some of the most legendary characters in blues, including Walter Davis and J.D. Short. He received a posthumous Grammy Award in 2008 for his playing on Last of the Great Mississippi Delta Bluesmen: Live in Dallas".

[The Rebel]

Memphis Minnie.



“The blues scene in the 1920s and 1930s was diverse in style—spanning classic, urban, and country blues—but almost completely homogenous in terms of gender. Men dominated the stages of juke joints and nightclubs, with very few women breaking the ranks of blues musicians.

Spoiler

However, there were a few exceptions who made their mark. One such woman was Memphis Minnie, the most significant female country blues singer to emerge during that era.

She is credited as being one of the first blues artists—male or female—to use the electric guitar, preceding Muddy Waters’ use of the instrument by a year. Memphis Minnie’s style of guitar playing reflected how she lived her life—hard-driving, passionate, and contrary to what was expected of women at the time. Although she made numerous recordings over the course of a career which spanned three decades, none of them captured the raw energy of the live performances that earned her a place next to other female blues greats like Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith”.

[The Rebel]

Barbecue Bob.



“One of the unsung heroes of the Piedmont blues style, Robert Hicks, aka Barbecue Bob recorded over sixty sides for Columbia Records and became one of the best-selling artists on their 'race series', outsold only by Bessie Smith, Ethel Waters and Blind Willie Johnson.

With his original and witty compositions he was one of the real pioneers of the Atlanta blues scene of the time, but his career was tragically ended by his death from pneumonia at the age of just 29.” - World Music.

[The Rebel]

Billy Gibbons.
“The blues is life itself”.

[The Rebel]

Mississippi Fred McDowell.



“In 1959, folklorists Alan Lomax and Shirley Collins came to a farm near Como, Mississippi.
There they would discover a slide guitarist of singular power and uncommon elegance, a 51-year-old sharecropper by the name of Fred McDowell. Lomax — who had been involved in discovering Son House, Lead Belly and Muddy Waters, among many others — listened to McDowell play, then took out a notebook and scribbled a single word: “Perfect.” - Bob Mehr.

[The Rebel]

Lefty Dizz.



“The History of the Blues is littered with wild characters like Charley Patton, Little Walter and Guitar Slim, but Lefty Dizz was one of the wildest, despite being little known outside Chicago.

A fixture on the club scene from the mid-60s until the early 90s, Lefty and his band Shock Treatment pulled every trick in the book to put on a show. Anyone foolish enough to challenge Lefty to a ‘cutting contest’ was liable to end up in shreds as he showed his chops, playing at a furious pace while dropping musical quotes and gags into every line. However this man was not just a clown, despite his antics and constant joking, as his Degree in Economics from South Illinois University shows.” - All About Blues Music.

[The Rebel]

Blind Blake.



“Arther Blake recorded about 80 tracks for Paramount Records from 1926 to 1932. He was one of the most accomplished guitarists of his genre and played a diverse range of material. He is best known for his distinctive guitar playing, which was comparable in sound and style to ragtime piano.

Spoiler

He may have lived in Jacksonville and to have gone to Chicago for his recording sessions. According to van der Tuuk et al., he returned to Florida for the winter. In the 1930s he was reported to be playing in front of a Jacksonville hotel.”

“For decades nothing was known of him after this point, and it was rumored that he met with a violent death. Reverend Gary Davis heard he had been hit by a streetcar in 1934 and Big Bill Broonzy thought that he had frozen to death after falling over drunk during a Chicago blizzard and was too overweight to get back up. The research of van der Tuuk et al. suggests that Blake stayed in Wisconsin, living in Milwaukee's Brewer's Hill neighborhood, where Paramount boarded many of its artists. He seems not to have found work as a musician. In April 1933, he was hospitalized with pneumonia and never fully recovered. On December 1 1934, after three weeks of decline, Beatrice Blake summoned an ambulance. He had a pulmonary hemorrhage and died on the way to the hospital. The cause of death was listed as pulmonary tuberculosis. He was buried in Glen Oaks Cemetery, in Glendale, Wisconsin”.

[The Rebel]

Big George Brock.
May 16, 1932 – April 10, 2020



“Blues ain’t nothin’ but the truth”.
“Big George Brock, was an American blues musician. A native of Mississippi, he moved to Missouri in the 1950s and operated a series of nightclubs. He played alongside Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Jimmy Reed, and Albert King. Brock starred in the 2006 film Hard Times, a documentary about his life”.

[The Rebel]

John Lee Hooker.



“You got to sound like yourself”.
“I went to Memphis, Cincinnati and then Detroit. I was playin’ when I was 13 or 14; my stepfather taught me how to play. What I’m playing now, he taught me. Nobody else plays this style;
I got it all to myself. They tries; they get close, but...a lot of guitarists get good; they’re fantastic, beautiful, really fast, but a lot of them just sound alike. You got to tell your own story, like I tell my own. You hear one of these guys, you heard ’em all. They sound like B.B. King, or like Jimi Hendrix. They ain’t themselves. You got to sound like yourself. You may not be fantastic, or fast; but if you got a different style...nobody sound like John Lee Hooker” - Q, 1990.

[The Rebel]

Lightnin’ Hopkins.

[The Rebel]

B.B. King.



“When it comes to my own life, others may know the cold facts better than me. Scholars have told me to my face that I'm mixed up. I smile but don't argue. Truth is, cold facts don't tell the whole story. Reading this, some may accuse me of remembering wrong. That's okay, because I'm not writing a cold-blooded history. I'm writing a memory of my heart. That's the truth I'm after - following my feelings, no matter where they lead. I want to try to understand myself, hoping that you - my family, my friends, my fans - will understand me as well.”

“This is a blues story. The blues are a simple music, and I'm a simple man. But the blues aren't a science; the blues can't be broken down like mathematics. The blues are a mystery, and mysteries are never as simple as they look.” - B.B. King, Blues All Around Me: The Autobiography of B.B. King.

[The Rebel]

Joseph Lee "Big Joe" Williams.
(October 16, 1903 – December 17, 1982).



“Big Joe Williams was an American Delta blues guitarist, singer and songwriter, notable for the distinctive sound of his nine-string guitar. Performing over five decades, he recorded the songs "Baby Please Don't Go", "Crawlin' King Snake" and "Peach Orchard Mama", among many others, for various record labels, including Bluebird, Delmark, Okeh, Prestige and Vocalion. He was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame on October 4, 1992.”