Modern Blues Essentials

Sometime during the 1950s, the guitar overtook piano and harmonica as the lead instrument of choice for blues music, especially the Chicago blues sound. With the guitar's new importance came musical innovation, and these six influential modern blues guitarists are among the best that the era had to offer. Each of these talented g…

Country blues, which is also known as "folk blues," is a primarily an acoustic guitar-oriented type of blues from which many other styles are derived. Developed independently in both the Mississippi Delta and in the Southeast United States, country blues incorporates elements of gospel, ragtime, hillbilly, and Dixieland jazz. These are the country blues pioneers that brought the music to new audi…

Blues music may have been forged in the Mississippi Delta, but Chicago is where the music put on a shirt and tie, subsequently achieving commercial respectability. The period between 1950 and 1970 was the prime era for Chicago blues music, when giants like Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and Junior Wells ruled the roost. Although the music slumped somewhat during the late-1960s, it remains a strong p…

As rich in talent as the early blues era was, artists like Charley Patton, Robert Johnson and Son House set the stage for bluesmen in the 1940s and '50s to succeed commercially, thus bringing the blues to a mass audience. It's tough narrowing any list of talent down to a mere handful, but here are six essential blues artists of the modern era, those with the most influence and impact on both blue…

The history of the blues is one of stars and sidemen: the artist on the microphone, charming the audience, and the players standing, sometimes literally, in the shadows. To be honest, blues legends like Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf were larger than life figures with great charisma. But blues music is often a collaborative effort, and the talents of an artist's band are crucial in shaping the st…