All We Need is … Satisfaction

The New Georgia Encyclopedia : Between 1934 and 1937 “Bumble Bee Slim” Easton recorded more than 150 titles. His wry, streetwise songs, while not particularly innovative, reflect the realities of African American life during the Great Depression and convey the warmth and resilience of Slim’s personality.

BluesHarp : (Little) Walter utilized the chromatic harp in ways never before envisioned (check out his 1956 free-form instrumental “Teenage Beat,” with Robert Jr. Lockwood and Luther Tucker manning the guitars, for proof positive). 1959’s determined “Everything Gonna Be Alright” was Walter’s last trip to the hit lists; Chicago blues had faded to a commercial non-entity by then unless your name was Jimmy Reed.

CMT : Foregoing the wail of wahs-wahs and the shrieks of overblown high notes, Cooksey cooked up a simple-and-clear folk broth that some critics have identified as the source of Bob Dylan‘s harmonica technique, while others resent the presence of Dylan’s name and the words “harmonica” and “technique” in the same sentence.

The Mayo Williams Indies : Bonnie “Bombshell” Lee made her recording debut on Ebony IV, which was not the best introduction to the business. Bob Koester remembers her coming into his newly purchased record store, Seymour’s, carrying a load of 78 rpm records and trying to sell them to Koester for a dollar apiece. Koester explained that is what he sold them for, so he couldn’t take them. Lee said she couldn’t go lower than what Mr. Williams told her to get, picked the records back up and walked out of the store dejected.

Intrepid Artists : For more than 30 years and nine albums, Rick fronted the jumping, swinging Little Charlie & The Nightcats, featuring guitarist Little Charlie Baty. With Baty’s recent retirement from touring, Estrin—along with the Nightcats’ longtime rhythm section of J. Hansen and Lorenzo Farrell and a new member, fiery guitarist Kid Andersen—takes the lead on his own.

allmusic : Though considered the finest deep soul record of all time by no less than soul expert Dave Godin, Doris Duke’s “I’m a Loser” was rejected by dozens of labels before it finally surfaced on Wally Roker’s Canyon label. Although the first single, “To the Other Woman,” cracked Billboard’s R&B Top Ten, Canyon soon spiraled into financial disaster, destroying the album’s commercial momentum.

Mississippi John Hurt Blues Foundation : John Hurt stated, ” I wasn’t allowed to bother Mr. Carson’s guitar. I would wait until he feel asleep at my house, then I would slip his guitar into my room and try to play. There I learned to play the guitar at the age of nine years old. After that, my mother bought me a second hand guitar at the price of $1.50! 1 can tell you there was no beautiful sound than my own guitar music. I was playing for country dances at the same time working very hard on a farm new Avalon Mississippi.”

John Scofield : Born in Ohio and raised in suburban Connecticut, Scofield took up the guitar at age 11, inspired by both rock and blues players. He attended Berklee College of Music in Boston. After a debut recording with Gerry Mulligan and Chet Baker, Scofield was a member of the Billy Cobham–George Duke band for two years.

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