The quintessential jazz singer, Billie Holiday seemed to stamp her heart onto everything she sang. With a thin, reedy voice and almost laconic style, she could give even a throwaway pop song a gut-wrenching twist. Her most memorable music is loaded w…

Robert Johnson is the most legendary of Delta blues singers, and while the facts of his real life are scarce, tall tales abound--most commonly that he sold his soul to the devil in order to master the guitar. Johnson invested his music with frighteni…

A blues shouter in the tradition of Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith, Big Mama Thornton is best remembered as the first artist to record "Hound Dog." A side-by-side comparison of her version and Elvis's shows just how different a song can be in two great a…

Originally a Delta bluesman in the vein of Son House, Muddy Waters moved north in the 1940s and became the leader of the first--and greatest--electric Chicago blues band. Waters' abrasive guitar, impassioned singing, and commanding stage presence ins…

Skip James is one of the most revered Delta blues artists of the 20th century. His high, haunted vocal style and bone-chilling acoustic guitar work gave him a sound that set him apart from his peers. The recordings he made in the early 1930s are amon…

One of the first recorded blues artists, Blind Lemon Jefferson was also one of the genre's most influential musicians. His dexterous, percussive guitar style, and haunting vocals set the standard for country blues artists. Were it not for the fact th…

Though he started out in the pre-swing era of the 1920s, jazz singer/bandleader Cab Calloway eventually became one of the most important figures in early swing. The Rochester, NY-born Calloway was nothing if not an entertainer; dressed in flamboyant …

Trumpeter/vocalist Louis Armstrong is perhaps the single most influential artist in the history of jazz. He started out in the "hot" bands of 1920s New Orleans, and was one of the first to introduce solo improvisation into the jazz idiom. Over the ne…

While several women rose to fame as blues vocalists in the early 1930s, few succeeded as instrumentalists. Memphis Minnie was a notable exception. A forceful guitarist who once reportedly beat Big Bill Broonzy in a guitar picking contest, Memphis Min…

Jelly Roll Morton may have been indulging in typical hyperbole when he advertised himself as the inventor of jazz, but one has to concede his role as the idiom's first important composer. A wonderful pianist who could also sing, he brilliantly distil…

Nina Simone was a great pianist, a riveting vocalist, and an uncompromising personality. Her sociopolitical consciousness and eclecticism set her apart from the pack. Her interpretations of soul, jazz, blues, and standards are both striking and uniqu…

Elmore James built a blues career largely around one milestone slide-guitar lick, but what a lick it was! Copped from Robert Johnson's "Dust My Broom," James's frantic trademark run can safely be cited as one of the cornerstones of rock & roll, from …

Through unparalleled ability and judicious choice of repertoire, Ella Fitzgerald became the foremost female interpreter of the 20th-century Great American Popular Song Book. With producer Norman Granz she worked on the "songbook" series, placing on r…

Blind Willie McTell would be remembered today if only because Bob Dylan immortalized him in song, but McTell's legacy (recording from the 1920s to the 1950s) extends well beyond a single cut. A masterly 12-string guitar player, McTell came to epitomi…

Though Californian belter Etta James is widely known as one of the greatest blues singers, famed for her '60s Chess recordings and '70s Muscle Shoals work, her story is bigger than that. She started out with the Johnny Otis band in the '50s as a hard…

The embodiment of the link between folk and blues, Lousiana-born Leadbelly (Huddie Ledbetter) possessed a powerful voice and the creative fervor to fashion his observations and heartfelt passions into riveting songs. An itinerant singer/guitarist, he…

John Lee Hooker is the most elemental of the electric blues giants. His spooky musical minimalism--plaintive yet powerful vocals coupled with guitar work alternately haunting and toe-tapping--has inspired countless artists, from contemporaries like S…

The great Memphis guitarist and singer B.B. King has been the most high-profile figure in blues since the 1960s, ever since his LIVE AT THE REGAL album established him as a superstar. King has collaborated successfully with everyone from Bobby Bland …

Some artists are influential because so many followers try to imitate them; others are influential precisely because they cannot be imitated. Lightnin' Hopkins was of the latter variety. With a career that stretched from the 1920s through the '70s, t…

Howlin' Wolf's menacing, guttural vocals are among the blues' most distinctive sounds. His repertoire, much of which flowed from the pen of Willie Dixon, is equally classic. Wolf, Muddy Waters, and Sonny Boy Williamson make up the Holy Trinity of Chi…