Country blues guitarist and vocalist Blind Lemon Jefferson is indisputably one of the main figures in country blues. He was of the highest in many regards, being one of the founders of Texas blues (along with Texas Alexander), one of the most influential country bluesmen of all time, one of the most popular bluesmen of the 1920s, and the first... [+] Read More

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If the Delta country blues has a convenient source point, it would probably be Charley Patton, its first great star. His hoarse, impassioned singing style, fluid guitar playing, and unrelenting beat made him the original king of the Delta blues. Much more than your average itinerant musician, Patton was an acknowledged celebrity and a seminal... [+] Read More

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East Texan Washington Phillips was one of the founding fathers of American gospel music. Although he recorded only eighteen tunes (sixteen of which have survived) in five sessions in Dallas between 1927 and 1929, Phillips helped to lay the foundation that resulted in such spiritually-oriented performers as Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the Dixie... [+] Read More

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In his prime of life, which is to say the late '20s, the Reverend Gary Davis was one of the two most renowned practitioners of the East Coast school of ragtime guitar; 35 years later, despite two decades spent playing on the streets of Harlem in New York, he was still one of the giants in his field, playing before thousands of people at a time,... [+] Read More

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Quite possible the last of the great blues street singers, Rev. Pearly Brown was born August 18, 1915, in Abbeville, GA. Blind from birth, he grew up in Americus, GA, where he reportedly learned to play guitar at the age of seven. As a young man he began to busk on the streets in Americus, eventually moving on to Macon, where he was a fixture on... [+] Read More

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