Photo from Alberta Hunter: My Castle’s Rockin’ via screen-grab April 1, 1895 - Alberta Hunter: "We sing the blues because our hearts have been hurt, our souls have been disturbed." She was a Blues singer and songwriter who had a very successful career from the … [Read more...]
#BornThisDay: Blues Great, Big Mama Thornton
Via Wikimedia Commons December 12, 1926 – Willie Mae Thornton: “My singing comes from my experience. I never went to school for music or nothin’. I taught myself to sing and to blow harmonica and even to play drums by watchin’ other people!” You kids might have heard of … [Read more...]
#BornThisDay: Musician, Sister Rosetta Tharpe
Photo from BBC via YouTube Did you know that Rock 'n' Roll was invented by a queer black woman. She was born a kinky-haired girl of two cotton pickers in Cotton Plant Arkansas, a part of the Jim Crow South. She played electric guitar in ways very few people could have ever … [Read more...]
#BlackHistoryMonth: Remembering, Blues Pioneer, Alberta Hunter
Photo from Alberta Hunter: My Castle's Rockin' via screen-grab Alberta Hunter (1895 – 1984) was a Blues singer and songwriter who had a very successful career from the early 1920s to the late 1950s, and then stopped performing to become a nurse. Hunter was born in Memphis. … [Read more...]
#BornThisDay: Blues Singer, Bessie Smith
April 15, 1894- Bessie Smith was born into poverty in Tennessee, no one knows for certain exactly what year, but we're going to say 1894. She was discovered singing on a street corner in Chattanooga as a young girl by the great Blues singer Ma Rainey. When she was 19-years-old, … [Read more...]
#RIP: Blues Legend, B.B. King
B.B. King, the legendary "king of the blues" passed away last night in Las Vegas, according to his lawyer, Brent Bryson who says that King, "died peacefully in his … [Read more...]
Obama Turns the White House Blues
At "Red, White and Blues," a White House event to celebrate Black History Month, the president was nudged into singing a few bars of "Sweet Home Chicago," backed … [Read more...]
