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Siegel–Schwall Band
The Siegel–Schwall Band was an American electric blues band from Chicago, Illinois. The band was formed in 1964 by Corky Siegel (piano, electric piano, harmonica, vocals) and Jim Schwall (guitar, mandolin, vocals). They played many live shows, and released ten albums. They disbanded in 1974. The Siegel–Schwall Band performed occasional concerts, and released two more albums, from 1987 to 2016. History Corky Siegel and Jim Schwall met each other when both were music students at Roosevelt University. Siegel, originally a saxophone, saxophonist, was interested in blues, while Schwall's background was mostly in country music. They combined these two genres, producing a lighter sounding blues as compared to Paul Butterfield, Butterfield Blues Band or John Mayall. The Siegel–Schwall Band included Shelly Plotkin on drums and Jos Davidson on bass. Davidson had previously played with Steve Miller and the Ardells. They were the house band at Pepper's Lounge on Chicago's South S ...
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Chicago
Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of United States cities by population, third-most populous city in the United States after New York City and Los Angeles. As the county seat, seat of Cook County, Illinois, Cook County, the List of the most populous counties in the United States, second-most populous county in the U.S., Chicago is the center of the Chicago metropolitan area, often colloquially called "Chicagoland" and home to 9.6 million residents. Located on the shore of Lake Michigan, Chicago was incorporated as a city in 1837 near a Chicago Portage, portage between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River, Mississippi River watershed. It grew rapidly in the mid-19th century. In 1871, the Great Chicago Fire destroyed several square miles and left more than 100,000 homeless, but ...
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Paul Butterfield
Paul Vaughn Butterfield (December 17, 1942May 4, 1987) was an American blues harmonica player, singer, and bandleader. After early training as a Western concert flute, classical flautist, he developed an interest in blues harmonica. He explored the blues scene in his native Chicago, where he met Muddy Waters and other blues greats, who provided encouragement and opportunities for him to join in jam sessions. He soon began performing with fellow blues enthusiasts Nick Gravenites and Elvin Bishop. In 1963, he formed the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, which recorded several successful albums and was popular on the late-1960s concert and festival circuit, with performances at the Fillmore West in San Francisco, the Fillmore East in New York City, the Monterey Pop Festival, and Woodstock. The band was known for combining electric Chicago blues with a rock urgency. and for their pioneering jazz fusion performances and recordings. The band was also among the first racially integrated blu ...
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Otis Spann
Otis Spann (March 21, 1924, or 1930April 24, 1970) was an American blues musician many consider the leading postwar Chicago blues pianist. Early life Sources differ over Spann's early years. Some state that he was born in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1930, but researchers Bob Eagle and Eric LeBlanc concluded, based on census records and other official information, that he was born in 1924 in Belzoni, Mississippi. Spann's father was, according to some sources, a pianist called Friday Ford. His mother, Josephine Erby, was a guitarist who had worked with Memphis Minnie and Bessie Smith, and his stepfather, Frank Houston Spann, was a preacher and musician. One of five children, Spann began playing the piano at seven, with some instruction from Friday Ford, Frank Spann, and Little Brother Montgomery.Harris, S. (1981). ''Blues Who's Who''. New York: Da Capo Press. pp. 477–479. . Career By age 14, he was playing in bands in the Jackson area. He moved to Chicago in 1946, where Big Ma ...
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Magic Sam
Samuel Gene Maghett (February 14, 1937 – December 1, 1969), known as Magic Sam, was an American Chicago blues musician. He was born in Grenada County, Mississippi, and learned to play the blues from listening to records by Muddy Waters and Little Walter. After moving to Chicago at the age of 19, he was signed by Cobra Records and became well known as a bluesman after the release of his first record, "All Your Love", in 1957. He was known for his distinctive tremolo guitar playing. The stage name Magic Sam was devised by Sam's bass player and childhood friend Mack Thompson at Sam's first recording session for Cobra, as an approximation of "Maghett Sam". The name Sam was using at the time, Good Rocking Sam, was already being used by another artist. Life and career Maghett moved to Chicago in 1956, where his guitar playing earned him bookings at blues clubs on the West Side. He recorded singles for Cobra Records from 1957 to 1959, including "All Your Love" and "Easy Baby". T ...
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Muddy Waters
McKinley Morganfield (April 4, 1913April 30, 1983), better known as Muddy Waters, was an American blues singer-songwriter and musician who was an important figure in the post-World War II blues scene, and is often cited as the "father of modern Chicago blues". His style of playing has been described as "raining down Delta beatitude". Muddy Waters grew up on Stovall Plantation near Clarksdale, Mississippi, and by age 17 was playing the guitar and the harmonica, copying local blues artists Son House and Robert Johnson."His thick heavy voice, the dark colouration of his tone, and his firm, almost solid, personality were all clearly derived from House," wrote the music historian Peter Guralnick in ''Feel Like Going Home'', "but the embellishments, which he added, the imaginative slide technique and more agile rhythms, were closer to Johnson." In 1941, Alan Lomax and Professor John W. Work III of Fisk University recorded him in Mississippi for the Library of Congress. In 1943 ...
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Little Walter
Marion Walter Jacobs (May 1, 1930 – February 15, 1968), known as Little Walter, was an American blues musician, singer, and songwriter, whose revolutionary approach to the harmonica had a strong impact on succeeding generations, earning him comparisons to such seminal artists as Django Reinhardt, Charlie Parker and Jimi Hendrix. His virtuosity and musical innovations fundamentally altered many listeners' expectations of what was possible on blues harmonica. He was inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008, the first and, to date, only artist to be inducted specifically as a harmonica player. Biography Early years Jacobs' date of birth is usually given as May 1, 1930, in Marksville, Louisiana. He was born without a birth certificate and when he applied for a Social Security card in 1940, his birthdate was listed as May 1, 1923. Over the years he often gave different years, but May 1 was constant. In some other documents he filled out before reaching the age of the ...
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Billy Boy Arnold
William "Billy Boy" Arnold (born September 16, 1935) is an American blues harmonica player, singer and songwriter. Arnold is a self-taught harmonica player and has worked with blues legends such as Bo Diddley, Johnny Shines, Otis Rush, Earl Hooker, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters and others. Biography Born in Chicago, Illinois, as one of 16 children, he began playing harmonica as a child, and in 1948 received informal lessons from his near neighbour John Lee "Sonny Boy" Williamson, shortly before the latter's death. Arnold made his recording debut in 1952 with "Hello Stranger" on the small Cool label, the record company giving him the nickname "Billy Boy". In the early 1950s, he joined forces with street musician Bo Diddley and played harmonica on the March 2, 1955 recording of the Bo Diddley song " I'm a Man" released by Checker Records. The same day as the Bo Diddley sessions, Billy Boy recorded the self-penned "You Got to Love Me" which was not released until the box set ''C ...
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Buddy Guy
George "Buddy" Guy (born July 30, 1936) is an American blues guitarist and singer. He is an exponent of Chicago blues who has influenced generations of guitarists including Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Keith Richards, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jeff Beck, Gary Clark Jr. and John Mayer. In the 1960s, Guy played with Muddy Waters as a session guitarist at Chess Records and began a musical partnership with blues harp virtuoso Junior Wells. Guy has won eight Grammy Awards and a Lifetime Achievement Award, the National Medal of Arts, and the Kennedy Center Honors. Guy was ranked 27th in ''Rolling Stone'' magazine's 2023 list of greatest guitarists of all time. His song "Stone Crazy" was ranked 78th in the ''Rolling Stone'' list of the "100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time". Clapton once described him as "the best guitar player alive". In 1999, Guy wrote the book ''Damn Right I've Got the Blues'', with Donald Wilcock. His autobiography, ''When I Left Home: My Story'', was publish ...
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Junior Wells
Junior Wells (born Amos Wells Blakemore Jr.; December 9, 1934January 15, 1998) was an American singer, harmonica player, and recording artist. He is best known for his signature song " Messin' with the Kid" and his 1965 album '' Hoodoo Man Blues'', described by the critic Bill Dahl as "one of the truly classic blues albums of the 1960s". Wells himself categorized his music as rhythm and blues. Wells performed and recorded with various notable blues musicians, including Muddy Waters, Earl Hooker, and Buddy Guy. He remained a fixture on the blues scene throughout his career and also crossed over to rock audiences while touring with the Rolling Stones. Not long before Wells died, the blues historian Gerard Herzhaft called him "one of the rare active survivors of the 'golden age of the blues. Early life Wells may have been born in Memphis, Tennessee, and raised in West Memphis, Arkansas (some sources report that he was born in West Memphis). Initially taught by his cousin Jun ...
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Chicago Blues
Chicago blues is a form of blues music that developed in Chicago, Illinois. It is based on earlier blues idioms, such as Delta blues, but is performed in an urban style. It developed alongside the Great Migration of African Americans of the first half of the twentieth century. Key features that distinguish Chicago blues from the earlier traditions, such as Delta blues, are the prominent use of electrified instruments (especially the electric guitar), and especially the use of electronic effects such as distortion and overdrive. Muddy Waters, a colleague of Delta blues musicians Son House and Robert Johnson, migrated to Chicago in 1943, joining the established Big Bill Broonzy, where they developed a distinctive style of blues music. Joined by artists such as Willie Dixon, Howlin' Wolf, and John Lee Hooker, Chicago blues reached an international audience by the late 1950s and early 1960s, directly influencing not only the development of early rock and roll musicians such as ...
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Guinness Publishing
''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a British reference book published annually, listing world records both of human achievements and the extremes of the natural world. Hugh Beaver, Sir Hugh Beaver created the concept, and twin brothers Norris McWhirter, Norris and Ross McWhirter co-founded the book in London in August 1955. The first edition topped the bestseller list in the United Kingdom by Christmas 1955. The following year the book was launched internationally, and as of the 2025 edition, it is now in its 70th year of publication, published in 100 countries and 40 languages, and maintains over 53,000 records in its database. The international Franchising, franchise has extended beyond print to include television series and museums. The popularity of the franchise has resulted in ''Guinness World Records'' becoming the ...
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Colin Larkin (writer)
Colin Larkin (born 1949) is a British music writer. He founded and was the editor-in-chief of '' The Encyclopedia of Popular Music''. Along with the ten-volume encyclopedia, Larkin also wrote the book '' All Time Top 1000 Albums'', and edited the ''Guinness Who's Who of Jazz'', the ''Guinness Who's Who of Blues'', and the ''Virgin Encyclopedia of Heavy Rock''. He has over 650,000 copies in print. Early life Larkin was born in Dagenham, Essex. He spent much of his early childhood attending the travelling fair where his father, who worked by day as a plumber for the council, moonlighted on the waltzers to make ends meet. It was in the fairground, against a background of Little Richard on the wind-up 78 rpm turntables, that Larkin acquired his passion for the world of popular music. Larkin studied at the South East Essex County Technical High School and at the London College of Printing, where he took typography and graphic design. Art and publishing Larkin's company Scorpi ...
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