An under-sung hero of the blues, Jimmy Rogers played an essential role in creating the electrified, band-oriented postwar Chicago sound. He was best known for playing guitar in Muddy Waters’ lineups during the Chess Records era, but Rogers was also an accomplished solo artist and the composer of the blues classics “Walking By Myself,” “Ludella,” “Chicago Bound,” and “That’s All Right.”
He was born James A. Lane in Ruleville, Mississippi, on June 3, 1924. “One guy that my mother stayed around with was Henry Rogers,” he explained. “I grabbed his name …

For four decades, Willie Dixon loomed at the forefront of Chicago blues, working as a bassist, arranger, band leader, producer, talent scout, agent, A&R man, and music publisher. His most enduring contributions, though, were the songs he wrote. Dixon made Muddy Waters the “Hoochie Coochie Man,” taught Howlin’ Wolf “Evil” and “Spoonful,” and showed Sonny Boy Williamson how to “Bring It on Home.” “Willie Dixon is the man who changed the style of the blues in Chicago,” said Johnny Shines, a regular on the scene. “As a songwriter and producer, …

For decades rumors have swirled that Keith Richards is a drugged-out burnout one wheeze away from the afterlife. Forget it. Richards is, in fact, charming, resilient, and among rock’s most articulate musicians. Don’t believe it? Listen to the hundreds of songs he’s written or read his autobiography, Life. If musicians were light bulbs, this guy would be 120-watts.
 I’ve done three interviews with Keith. The first, in 1992, was a three-hour encounter in Manhattan for a Guitar Player magazine cover story. The second, below, took place on July 14, 1994, at …

Long before becoming a force in Chicago blues, Johnny Shines hoboed with Robert Johnson through Depression-era America. They hopped freights, played on street corners, shared rooms and whiskey, and made it as far north as Canada. Johnson, the Mississippi Delta’s most celebrated blues performer, perished in 1938, and for the next half-century, his spirit haunted the music of Johnny Shines. It echoed in his turnarounds, mournful bottleneck slides, impassioned lyrics, and falsetto moans. At clubs, house parties, and other gatherings, Johnny Shines was just as likely to launch into Johnson’s …

Search “Rollin’ and Tumblin’” at www.youtube.com, and more than 300 versions pop up. You’ll find recent performances by Bob Dylan, Jeff Beck and Imogen Heap, Imelda May, Cyndi Lauper, the Carolina Chocolate Drops, and Gov’t Mule, to name just a few, as well as older readings by Muddy Waters, Elmore James, Johnny Winter, Cream, The Yardbirds, Captain Beefheart, Canned Heat, Bonnie Raitt, R.L. Burnside, Buddy Guy and Junior Wells, and many others. Over at www.archive.org you can hear 1920s renditions and an array of live covers by the Grateful Dead, …

During the Roaring Twenties, a dazzling array of slide players made it onto records. The first was Sylvester Weaver, a Kentucky bluesman who recorded 1923’s “Guitar Blues” lap-style in open D, using a knife to gliss the strings. Louisiana’s Lead Belly and the Mississippi Delta’s Charley Patton also used this old, Hawaiian-inspired technique, but most sliders held their guitars in standard playing position and used a true bottleneck sawed or chipped from a liquor bottle.
Regional styles soon emerged. Memphis and Mississippi guitarists such as Crying Sam Collins, Charlie Patton, and …

Believe it or not, in the early 1960s British musicians helped save American blues and rock and roll.
In its earliest incarnation, rock and roll had brought the meteoric rise of Bill Haley & The Comets, Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Buddy Holly, and other movers and shakers. Their music was raucous, thrilling, and seemingly unstoppable, but the initial ride was short-lived. By the late 1950s, Haley was washed up. Elvis was in the army. Chuck Berry was in jail. Little Richard had abandoned rock to preach the gospel, and …

During the mid 1950s, a tough new breed of guitarists began to emerge from Chicago’s West and South sides. These twenty-something bluesmen had all been raised in the South, and they played loud, hard, and sure-handed. Master string-shakers, they framed their cathartic tales of heartbreak and woe with unforgettable riffs and story-telling solos. Their ranks included Magic Sam, Freddie King, Buddy Guy, Joe Young, Luther Allison, Jimmy Dawkins, and first among them to score a hit, Otis Rush.
Born on April 29, 1934, Rush was raised on a plantation-style farm near …