Howlin' Wolf

Chester Arthur Burnett was born on June 10, 1910 in White Station, Mississippi, near West Point, he was named after Chester A. Arthur, the 21st President of the United States, and was nicknamed Big Foot Chester and Bull Cow in his early years because of his massive size at 6 feet, 6 inches (198 cm) and close to 300 pounds (136 kg). He explained the origin of the name Howlin' Wolf thus: "I got that from my grandfather (John Jones)." His Grandfather would often tell him stories about the wolves in that part of the country and warn him that if he misbehaved, the howling wolves would "get him".

Buddy Guy

George "Buddy" Guy was born on July 30, 1936and raised in Lettsworth, Louisiana, Guy began learning guitar on a two string diddley bow he made.  Later he was given a Harmony acoustic guitar, which, decades later in Guy's lengthy career was donated to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. His earliest influences included T-Bone Walker, Lightnin’ Slim and Lightnin’ Hopkins - blues musicians who were all uniquely expressive stylists and showmen. 

Buddy Guy’s high-energy showmanship also owed a debt to Guitar Slim (a.k.a. Eddie Jones), of “The Things That I Used to Do” fame.

Taj Mahal Blues

Henry Saint Clair Fredericks, Jr. born on May 17, 1942 in Harlem, New York, and grew up in Springfield, Massachusetts. Taj Mahal, his stage name, came to him in dreams about Gandhi, India, and social tolerance. He started using it in 1959 or 1961—around the same time he began attending the University of Massachusetts. Despite having attended a vocational agriculture school, becoming a member of the National FFA Organization, and majoring in animal husbandry and minoring in veterinary science and agronomy, Taj Mahal decided to take the route of music instead of farming. In college he led a rhythm and blues band called Taj Mahal & The Elektras and, before heading for the West Coast, he was also part of a duo with Jessie Lee Kincaid.

Mississippi John Hurt

John Smith Hurt, better known as Mississippi John Hurt born in Teoc, Carroll County, Mississippi July 3, 1893 or maybe on March 8, 1892 was an influential country blues singer and guitarist. Raised in tiny Avalon, Mississippi, Hurt taught himself how to play the guitar around age nine.  John's father was Isom Hurt and his mother was Mary Jan McCain. Mississippi John Hurt was one of 3 children. He and his wife, Jessie, had 14 children. Singing in a loud whisper, to a melodious finger-picked accompaniment, he began to play local dances and parties while working as a sharecropper. Mississippi John Hurt first recorded for Okeh Records in 1928, but these were commercial failures, and Mississippi John Hurt drifted out of the recording scene, where he continued his work as a farmer.

Muddy Waters

McKinley Morganfield known as Muddy Waters, usually said that he was born in Rolling Fork, Mississippi in 1915, he was actually born at Jug's Corner in neighboring Issaquena County, Mississippi in April 4, 1913. His grandmother Della Grant raised him after his mother died shortly after his birth. His fondness for playing in mud earned him the nickname "Muddy" at an early age. He then changed it to "Muddy Water" and finally "Muddy Waters".

He started out on harmonica but by age seventeen he was playing the guitar at parties emulating two blues artists who were extremely popular in the south, Son House and Robert Johnson.

Bill Broonzy - Guitar Blues

William Lee Conley Broonzy, "Big Bill" or "Big Bill Broonzy" was one of Frank Broonzy and Mittie Belcher's 17 children. His birth site and date are disputed. 

The Mississippi Blues Commission states that while he claimed birth in Bolivar County, Mississippi, Broonzy was actually born in Lake Dick, Arkansas. 

Broonzy claimed he was born in 1893 and many sources report that year, but after his death his twin sister produced a birth certificate giving it as 1898, the currently accepted date. 

Soon after his birth the family moved to Pine Bluff, Arkansas, where Bill spent his youth.  He began playing music at an early age.

Fred McDowell - Guitar 'Mississipi' Blues

“Mississippi” Fred McDowell, as he was usually billed, was actually born and raised in Rossville, Tennessee. He never knew his birth date–January 12, 1904 is often cited, although census and Social Security documents point to 1906 or 1907. His parents, who were farmers, died when McDowell was a youth. He started playing guitar at the age of 14 and played at dances around Rossville. Wanting a change from plowing fields, he moved to Memphis in 1926 where he started to work in the Buck-Eye feed mill where they processed cotton into oil and other products.

Son House

Eddie James "Son" House, Jr born was an American blues singer and guitarist. House pioneered an innovative style featuring strong, repetitive rhythms, often played with the aid of slide guitar, and his singing often incorporated elements of southern gospel and spiritual music. Born in Riverton, two miles from Clarksdale, Mississippi. Around age seven or eight, he was brought by his mother to Tallulah, Louisiana, after his parents separated. The young Son House was determined to become a Baptist preacher, and at age 15 began his preaching career. Despite the church's firm stand against blues music and the sinful world which revolved around it, House became attracted to it and taught himself guitar in his mid 20s, after moving back to the Clarksdale area, inspired by the work of Willie Wilson. He began playing alongside Charley Patton, Willie Brown, Robert Johnson and Fiddlin’ Joe Martin around Robinsonville, Mississippi, and north to Memphis, Tennessee, until 1942.

Robert Johnson - Guitar Blues

Robert Johnson was born in Hazlehurst, Mississippi, possibly on May 8, 1911, to Julia Major Dodds (born October 1874) and Noah Johnson (born December 1884).
Julia was married to Charles Dodds (born February 1865), a relatively prosperous landowner and furniture maker with whom she gave birth to 10 children. Dodds had been forced by a lynch mob to leave Hazlehurst following a dispute with white landowners.
Julia herself left Hazlehurst with baby Robert, but after some two years, sent him to live in Memphis with Dodds, who had changed his name to Charles Spencer.

Charlie Patton

Charlie Patton, better known as Charley Patton (Between April 1887 & 1891 – April 28, 1934) is best known as an American Delta blues musician. He is considered by many to be the "Father of the Delta Blues" and therefore one of the oldest known figures of American popular music. He is credited with creating an enduring body of American music and personally inspiring just about every Delta blues man (Palmer, 1995). Musicologist Robert Palmer considers him among the most important musicians that America produced in the twentieth century. Many sources, including musical releases and his gravestone, spell his name “Charley” even though the musician himself spelled his name "Charlie."

Stevie Ray Vaughan

Stephen Ray Vaughan was born on October 3, 1954, in Dallas, Texas to Martha Jean and Jimmie Lee "Big Jim" Vaughan. James Lawrence "Jimmie" Vaughan, his brother, was three years older. Vaughan had ancestors who performed in bands with Glenn Miller and Tommy Dorsey, as well as Western swing groups in the Dallas area. Big Jim was an asbestos worker, switching from one construction site to the next, and leaving the family filled with uncertainty. After settling in the Dallas suburb of Oak Cliff, Vaughan attended Lenore Kirk Hall Elementary.

After observing Jimmie, Vaughan initially played his brother's guitars before receiving one of his own.

Jimi Hendrix

James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix (Johnny Allen Hendrix) born on November 27, 1942, in Seattle, Washington, the first of five children to James Allen "Al" Hendrix and Lucille Jeter.

Hendrix had two brothers, Leon and Joseph, and two sisters, Kathy and Pamela. Joseph was born with physical difficulties and was placed in foster care at age three. His two sisters were also both placed in foster care at a young age. Kathy was born blind and Pamela suffered lesser physical difficulties.

Hendrix was particularly fond of Elvis Presley, whom he saw perform in Seattle, in 1957. Leon Hendrix claimed in an early interview that Little Richard appeared in his Central District neighborhood and shook hands with his brother, Jimi. This is unattested elsewhere and vehemently denied by his father. Hendrix's early exposure to blues music came from listening to records by Muddy Waters and B.B. King which his father owned. Another early impression came from the 1954 western Johnny Guitar, in which the hero carries no gun but instead wears a guitar slung behind his back.

Eric Clapton

Eric Patrick Clapton was born in Ripley, Surrey in 30 March 1945, and brought up by his grandparents after his father returned home to Canada. After leaving school in 1961, Clapton studied briefly at the Kingston College of Art before taking up guitar playing in pubs around Surrey. He joined his first band, "The Roosters", in 1963. He founded Crossroads, a facility to help substance abusers recover.

He is an English guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter. Clapton is the only three-time inductee of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of The Yardbirds and Cream.

BB King

For more than half a century, Riley B. King - better known as B.B. King - has defined the blues for a worldwide audience. Since he started recording in the 1940s, he has released over fifty albums, many of them classics. He was born September 16, 1925, on a plantation in Itta Bena, Mississippi, near Indianola. In his youth, he played on street corners for dimes, and would sometimes play in as many as four towns a night. In 1947, he hitchhiked to Memphis, TN, to pursue his music career. Memphis was where every important musician of the South gravitated, and which supported a large musical community where every style of African American music could be found. B.B. stayed with his cousin Bukka White, one of the most celebrated blues performers of his time, who schooled B.B. further in the art of the blues.

Eric Clapton - Knockin' Heaven Doors

Ma, take this badge off of me.
I can't use it any more.
It's getting dark, too dark to see.
Feel like I'm knockin' on heaven's door.

Knock, knock, knockin' on heavens door.
Knock, knock, knockin' on heavens door.
Knock, knock, knockin' on heavens door.
Knock, knock, knockin' on heavens door.

Ma, take these guns away from me.
I can't shoot them any more.
There's a long black cloud following me.
Feel like I'm knockin' on heaven's door.




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