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…

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 …

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…

Sometimes known as Sonny Boy Williamson II, bluesman Rice Miller took his musical moniker from another blues singer who used it first, though Miller was the best-known Sonny Boy Williamson. He began performing in the 1920s, but the Mississippi singer…

Albert King is one of the most important post-war blues guitarists. His influence was even more profoundly felt in the rock world than in blues, though he earned iconic stature in both. His unusual style came from playing pickless, upside-down, and l…

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 …

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…

A self-proclaimed man among men (and deservedly so), singer/guitarist Bo Diddley is still the only musician in history to have a beat named after him. Diddley's raunchy, distorted 1950s sound and African-derived rhythm have been an enormous influence…

Chicago blues legend Willie Dixon was both house bassist and songwriter for the seminal Chess label in the 1950s through the early 1960s, providing material and/or accompaniment for Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Koko Taylor, et al. His songs have left …

Koko Taylor came in on the tail end of Chess Records' heyday, but she managed to score the legendary blues label one of its last big hits with her 1966 version of the Willie Dixon-penned "Wang Dang Doodle." Taylor's raw, gritty, soulful vocal style w…

Bob Dylan began as a Woody Guthrie acolyte, imitating the dust-bowl balladeer as faithfully as a baby boomer from Hibbing, Minnesota, could. It wasn't long before he found his own voice, spearheading the early-1960s folk revival as well as the singer…

Little Walter invented the overdriven, reverb-soaked harmonica sound that came to epitomize Chicago blues. Beginning in the late 1940s and early '50s, first as Muddy Waters' sideman and later as a soloist, Little Walter altered the role of the harmon…

One of the true giants of blues harmonica, Junior Wells is regarded--along with Little Walter and Sonny Boy Williamson--as a definitive post-WWII figure. Wells rose to prominence after replacing Little Walter in Muddy Waters's band, then reached the …

Though Otis Rush was born in Mississippi, he was no Delta blues guitarist. Seemingly a city boy at heart, he journeyed to Chicago, where he quickly became one of the most highly regarded urban blues players of the '50s and '60s. The left-handed guita…

Originally part of the early 1960s British blues/R&B scene, the Rolling Stones rapidly ascended the heights of fame with a perfect combination of hit singles and media-grabbing scandals. By the '70s, Keith Richards had become a bona fide guitar hero,…

From the beginning, singer/guitarist Taj Mahal had an interest in/gift for rural blues, and has since embraced everything from electric and psychedelic-tinged blues to reggae and calypso. A tireless performer, he's recorded in many settings, with his…

Many would agree that without Chuck Berry, there would not have been rock 'n' roll. Berry's 1955 debut single, "Maybellene," was an energetic smash hit, and led to a slew of successful late-'50s songs. Influencing such future big names as the Beatles…

Guitarist Jimmy Reed's laid-back style remains one of the friendliest entry points into the blues. His low-volume electric approach, though relatively quiet, was rhythmically relentless; in the 1950s he was one of the prime architects of the style kn…

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/…