The Blues Foundation

Roy Brown may be best known for writing the iconic, genre-warping song "Good Rockin’ Tonight."

Brown had a hit with it, then it was re-recorded by his hero Wynonie Harris, who also had a hit with it. Just a few years after that, further cementing the songs rightful place in music history, Elvis Presley recorded the song for Sun Records.

But there was more to Brown than Good Rockin'. You know that powerful, quivering, pleading, shouting manner in which most of today’s great singers sing? We take it for granted these days but it wasn’t always like that.

That style of singing comes from the African American church. And when Roy Brown first brought that feel and phrasing to blues music, it was a social and cultural taboo.

That’s right,  all that good rockin and all that soulful shouting that took over popular music can be traced back to the blues of Roy Brown.

This is his story

We continue the series with the man who brought electricity to the blues, and the blues to the big city, Muddy Waters.

Born McKinley Morganfield in 1913 in Issaquenna, MS, he grew up on the Stovall Plantation just outside of Clarksdale. There, young Muddy fell under the influence and tutelage of the travelling bluesmen that came to perform there. Bluesmen like the great Son House and the king of the delta blues himself, Robert Johnson.

Muddy moved to Chicago in 1943, taking with him his acoustic guitar and repertoire of delta blues songs and riffs. Feeling ignored by the crowds in the busy Chicago clubs, he traded in his acoustic for an electric guitar and the rest was history.

It's hard to believe that Skip James almost drifted into obscurity.

Like most enshrined in the Blues Hall of Fame, he was an absolute original. A genuine musical innovator. 

These days Skip James is considered by many to be the greatest of the delta blues singers. His songwriting, vocal stylings, and otherworldy ability on the guitar and piano influenced everyone, including a young Robert Johnson.

But back in the 1930's, when he was cutting records for Paramount, he didn't look like he had much of a future ahead of him. The Great Depression wiped out his record label, so James gave it all up and went dormant for decades.

But re-discovered by music lovers in the 60's folk revival, James 2nd act proved more powerful than his first.

This is his story.

Little Richard has been awarded every honor an artist could want. He may be enshrined in every hall of fame across the globe. And he may actually have invented rock n' roll, but blues was where his amazing journey began.

One of the greatest, most original, and most influential artists that has ever lived, Little Richard has been special from day one, and in this episode you'll hear all about it. There can only be one Little Richard, and formative events of his life were just as unique.

This is his story.

There aren't too many stories in the blues lexicon like Memphis Minnie's. 

At age 13 she ran away from home to fend for herself on Memphis' Beale Street. Fortunately for, she had prodigious musical talents far beyond her years and quickly adjusted to life as a street performer. Memphis Minnie was soon called upon to spread the blues far and wide as a performer in the Ringling Bros. "Greatest Show on Earth."

She returned home in 1920 to a booming Beale Street and a thriving music industry built around blues music. She naturally became one of its brightest stars.