That Time Keith Richards Found Muddy Waters Painting the Ceiling at Chess Studios
55 years ago today, the Rolling Stones released their “5×5” EP, the recording session in which they serendipitously met their blues idol, Muddy Waters.
55 years ago today, the Rolling Stones released their “5×5” EP, the recording session in which they serendipitously met their blues idol, Muddy Waters.
When Bob Marley toured New Zealand for the first and only time in 1979 (he died in 1981), I’d never heard music like it. His visit was so significant that he was a lead item on the nation’s main TV channel’s prime time news. He left a significant impression on our own musical culture, from…
I never listened to the Allman Brothers much, which is probably not what you’d expect to hear from somebody who’s about to write 500 or so words about Gregg Allman. But as I reflected on his passing last week, I realized that Gregg and his brother Duane had a much greater impact on my life as…
One of the greatest secrets about the blues is that it’s not primarily about the “blue notes,” or the structure, or the instrumentation. Those things are all heavily associated with the blues and appear in most blues songs, but at its core, the blues is all about storytelling. And the guitar is one of the…