Eric Clapton once called Buddy Guy "the greatest blues guitarist ever." Guy, along with contemporary Magic Sam, took the sounds of Chicago blues of the 1950s and ratcheted them up a notch, in the process creating a new form of controlled blues mayhem…

b. Ronald Earl Horvath, 10 March 1953, Queens, New York City, New York, USA. Ronald Horvath was inspired to play blues guitar after seeing Muddy Waters at a club in Boston, Massachusetts. Listing his influences as Robert Lockwood, B.B. King, Magic Sa…

b. 23 September 1939, Ozark, Alabama, USA, d. 14 August 1988. The son of a preacher, Buchanan discovered gospel music through the influence of travelling revivalists. This interest engendered his love of R&B and, having served an apprenticeship playi…

b. Robben Lee Ford, 16 December 1951, Woodlake, California, USA. A jazz, blues and rock guitarist, Robben is the most celebrated member of the musical Ford family. His father Charles was a country musician, and his brothers Patrick and Mark are blues…

b. 20 March 1951, Dallas, Texas, USA. Vaughan began playing rock music as an adolescent and worked with several local bands, moving nearer to the blues with each one, finally establishing a formidable reputation as a guitar player. In 1968 he saw Mud…

b. Santa Monica, California, USA. Montoya first rose to prominence in 1972 when a chance meeting in Culver City, California, led him to join Albert Collins' band as drummer. He took every opportunity to study the master guitarist closely over the fiv…

In the 1980s, many assumed blues rock was left for dead, but Stevie Ray Vaughan helped breath life back into it. More than a straight-ahead bluesman, Texas-native Vaughan was influenced as much by Jimi Hendrix as he was by Otis Rush, and the singer/…

b. David William Kearney, 8 September 1939, Houston, Texas, USA. A penchant for acrobatics disguises Shorty's real talent as a blues guitarist. He grew up in Kissimmee, Florida, where his uncle Willie Quarterman introduced him to the guitar. At 17 he…

Over the course of four decades, Eric Clapton has carried the British blues legacy into the mainstream of pop music. From his mid-1960s days with the Yardbirds and John Mayall, through his years as guitar god with Cream and Blind Faith, and eventuall…

b. Johnny Jones Jnr., 9 September 1967, Dallas, Texas, USA. Given his nickname while still a baby by his guitar-playing father, Jones began his musical career at the age of six, playing drums for his uncle's band, L.C. Clark And The Four Deuces. Ente…

b. Earl Zebedee Hooker, 15 January 1930, Clarksdale, Mississippi, USA, d. 21 April 1970. Hooker's interest in music was kindled at an early age. A self-taught guitarist, he began his itinerant career as a teenager, and having toured America's souther…

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 …

Washington DC-based blues rocker Tom Principato made his solo debut in 1986 with Smokin the first in a series of independent releases that also included 1988s I Know What Youre Thinking 1990s In Orbit and the live Blazing Telecasters and 1992s Tip of…

According to all the press and hype and hoopla Tommy Castro is pegged as the next big star of the blues Long a favorite among Bay Area music fans Castro -- in the space of two album releases -- has taken his music around the world and back again with…

Albert Cummings was born in Williamston MA and has made his home in the New England region all his life where he runs a successful home construction business He started playing the five-string banjo when he was 12 and appeared headed for a regional c…

Texas blues master Albert Collins was known for his unique Telecaster style, typified by extensive use of reverb, staccato picking, unconventional minor-key tunings, and a percussive, trebly quality. For four decades, from the 1950s on, his "cool" so…

A journeyman roots musician who'd put in nearly five decades in the music business by the turn of the millennium, Delbert McClinton's take on country and blues only improved with age. Cutting his chops as a touring and session man in the 1960s for va…

b. 30 November 1956, Grove City, Pennsylvania, USA. Having grown up in Irving, Texas, Kubek was playing in Dallas clubs at the age of 14. Three years later, he took a deeper interest in blues, prompted by Eric Clapton and Peter Green, and formed his …

b. 25 December 1949, San Francisco, California, USA. Although born in the city and raised during the era of "flower power", Walker had a strong and realized sense of the blues tradition. Nevertheless, he abandoned blues in the mid-70s to sing with go…

b. 17 August 1939, Mayflower, Arkansas, USA, d. 12 August 1997, Madison, Wisconsin, USA. Born into a family where he was the fourteenth child of 15, the young Allison worked with his siblings in the local cotton fields. In his youth, guitarist Alliso…