Sam Chatmon, who played in the Jackson, Mississippi area in the 1920s as part of the Mississippi Sheiks with his brothers Bo, Lonnie, Harry, Bert, and...
Folk Arts Rare Records opened on July 31, 1967 and has been pretty much in operation since that time. So, we are coming up on 50...
Blues researcher Paul Oliver, talks about hearing Sonny Terry play a tune called “The Alcoholic Blues.” Sonny told him that he learned it from a little...
It was that big pile of of 78 rpm records my folks had that started things off. Both Mom and Dad liked country and western and...
I’m always curious about how songs evolve, and I guess there’s no better documentation of that than by listening to recordings. Take Hank Williams’ “Lovesick Blues,”...
Clarence Williams was among the Golden Age of jazzmen, who first got me turned on to old time music. A pianist, leader, composer, and vocalist, he...
When I went to the Newport Folk Festival in 1964, being of a left-wing bent, I was attracted to the workshops of Mine and Mill. The...
Black history on record started with orchestra and gospel music by groups like the Fisk Jubilee Singers and the Jim Europe Military Band and a few...
That would be in 1963 on his home turf, Big Duke’s Club on Chicago’s West Side, and later that same year at the Newport Folk Festival....
