The tone master Walter Horton from 1970 — a huge influence on me, although you would not be able to tell.  As a bonus this clip includes Willie Dixon’s trademark out of tune dog-house bass.

There are dates on this list that I did not know. 29 September 2006 Tower Blues at Thornton Little Theatre Four Lane Ends, Thornton Cleveleys, FY5 3SZ – England Box Office: 01253 890927 Email: towerblues@btinternet.com 07 October 2006 Warrington R&B Club Alford Hall, Manchester Road Warrington – England 28 October 2006 Blues Club at Penrith [...]

I found this site that allows you to design your own cassette cases. Just a bit of fun.

I took a look through the Woodsongs Old Time Radio Hour website. They have an archive of the video and audio podcasts going back a few years. There are diamonds on those archives; I found two great video podcasts. Show 169 features superb performances by Kim Wilson and Otis Taylor. Two fantastic blues singers with [...]

Pete writes…. Just heard from Cal Batchelor’s agent in Canada – due to unforseen circumstances, Cal’s tour has had to be cancelled so the gig at Hookers on Saturday 28th October is now off. I hope to confirm an alternative band by the weekend.

Pete Evans writes…. You’ll no doubt have heard of Rod Garfield who in his time was regarded as one of the UK’s top harp players having played with Alexis Korner, Eric Clapton and many others. He emigrated to Australia in the mid 90s but still plays over in Oz. He has a website www.rodgarfield.f9.co.uk and [...]

Following on from yesterday’s clip of SBWII doing “Nine Below Zero” today’s clip is Nine Below Zero from 1981.

One of the masters of the harmonica – Sonny Boy Williamson II.

It seems that the RSS subscription buttons that were on the right hand side of this page were not working – so much for easy to implement third party code generators and my thorough testing policy.  Many thanks to Jon for pointing this out. Anyway hopefully everything is now resolved for those who wish to [...]

There is a jam night at The Royal Oak on Bridge Street, Ramsbottom. There is a wide diversity of musicians and usually it is Blues based, however it is not always possible to control who comes down so sometimes it strays from the Blues format but it is always good fun. The Jam night is [...]

There’s a good jam nite – not strictly blues where everyone gets a look in to do 2 or 3 tunes. All standards are embraced from genius to duffer, although usually the standard is very high. Alternate Mondays at The Bank at Sale, behind Sainsbury’s in Sale. For more information look in the news section [...]

It seems that Matt Schofield has slotted in a new gig here in the north west.  He’s playing Sun 22 October at Alexanders in Chester.  There is a bit of confusion on the time, it may be an afternoon gig.  Check with the venue before setting out.

A man who was one of the oldest living bluesmen died yesterday. His close friend Michael Hawkeye Herman sends the following message… It is with a heavy heart that I report to you that 96 year old blues legend Henry Townsend passed away this evening at St. Mary’s Ozaukee Hosptal, Mequon, WI at approximately 10PM [...]

Pit your wits against the formidable AI of Rock and Pop 20 Questions. It’s not got the biggest blues database so my recommendation is to err more towards the mainstream.

Following on with today’s harmonica theme here’s a classic YouTube clip from Harmonica Frank Floyd. The amazing Harmonica Frank Floyd, who recorded a couple of records for Sun Records and Chess Records in the early 1950s.  Floyd was a modern day hobo; no one knew anything about him, and because he disappeared from the scene [...]