By Johnny Petersen Editor’s Note: Oct. 2022. Our Scandinavian correspondent Johnny Petersen is back from a rather serious medical issue and we joyfully celebrate his return as an important contributor. He has his finger on the pulse of the vibrant roots & blues acoustic scene in Scandinavia. Here he puts the spotlight on an amazing player who most international blues fans might otherwise miss, but who is quite astonishing and amazing. The editorial policy of thecountryblues.com is based on the ideal of musical universalism. We endorse anyone to play anything they feel in their heart and so ..read more

James Yank Rachell: Blues Mandolin James “Yank” Rachell (1910 or 1903-1997) was born near Brownsville, Tennessee, and grew up in the country. After making a diddly bow as a youngster he traded a pig for a mandolin. He and his brother began to play locally, working local parties. In early 1920s he teamed up with lifelong friend Sleepy John Estes with whom he worked and recorded from 1929 on. He also worked with a Young John Lee Williamson, aka Sonny Boy Williamson, until Williamson moved to Chicago in 1937. Rachell continued to record but would not leave his family. Despite maintaining various ..read more

“I could Sing Like a Bird”:  Pinetop Perkins’ Story and Stories Joe Willie “Pinetop” Perkins (1913-2011) was born near Belzoni, Mississippi, where he grew up in a cotton farming family. After making a one-string diddley bow, he first learned to play guitar and then piano. At a young age he began to play house parties, graduating to the jook and barrelhouse circuit in the company of Willie Love, Boyd Gilmore, and a who’s who of Mississippi musicians before hooking up with Robert Nighthawk in 1943 and playing over KFFA in Helena, Arkansas. He jumped bands to join Sonny Boy Williamson in the ..read more

Fontella Marie Bass (1940-201) was born in Saint Louis, Missouri. A gospel child prodigy, she learned piano and toured with both her grandmother and mother Martha Carter Bass from age 5 through 16. In the company of her grandfather and uncles, she began sitting in at various Saint Louis and East Saint Louis clubs, eventually working with Oliver Sain and Little Milton, whom she eventually followed to Chicago where both signed with Chess Records. He had several major hits in the 1960s: ‘Don’t You Mess up a Good Thing’ with Bobby McClure, ‘Rescue Me,’ 1965, and ‘Recovery.’ After spending some yea ..read more

Willie King (1943-2009) was born in Mississippi but moved to Aliceville, Alabama at age 7. Raised by his grandparents, he came under the influence of a much older musician, Albert ‘Brook Duck,’ who used to play jooks with his brothers. After a brief sojourn to Chicago, King returned to the Mississippi-Alabama border area and worked a local jook with his band, the Liberators, an outspoken social activist whose grandfather brought him up in the Muslim faith. He preaches a message of social justice and love as taught to him by his grandfather. King supported himself as a bootlegger for years and ..read more

Willie C. Cobbs (1932- ) was born in Smale, Arkansas, near Monroe. As a youngster he was part of a family gospel quartet. He moved to Chicago in 1951, switching over to blues. Working with various artists, including Eddie Boyd and blues great Howlin’ Wolf. In 1961 he recorded his biggest hit, “You Don’t Love Me.” He moved back South in the1960s, playing various clubs and working on WDIA. He remained active as a vocalist, harmonica and bass player. This interview took place in Chicago, Illinois, June 3, 1995. Barry Lee Pearson University of Maryland “I got into music through the church. My gran ..read more

Mamie Galore-Davis (1940-2001) was born in Erwin, Mississippi, and moved to Greenville as a youngster. She sang gospel as a youngster and then with a local blues band, moving on to work with Ike and Tina Turner and then Little Milton. She recorded for several labels in the 1960s and lived in Chicago and Louisiana before returning to Greenville, Mississippi, in 1972. Interviewed at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, Washington, D.C., July 1991. Barry Lee Pearson University of Maryland “I guess I got started when I was real small, because I was always around people playing guitars and singing th ..read more

Purchase John Rocklin’s Photos John David Rocklin was born in 1962 in New York City to abstract expressionist artist Raymond Rocklin and Carol Rocklin. The home he was born into was at 118 E 10th Street in Manhattan and was the birthplace of Stanford White. John’s parents were considered “pioneers” as the block at the time consisted of rooming houses and was in quite a bad state of crime and decay.  John also partly grew up in Orwell, Vt and after the age of 8 in Furnace Woods outside of Peekskill in the Hudson Valley. After an extended visit to see the country by thumb and living a ..read more

Clarence Butler (1942-2003) and his twin brother Curtis (1942-2004) were born in Killen, Alabama, a suburb north of Florence. Their father, Willie Butch Butler, was an outstanding local blues musician who inspired but did not teach them to play. Both twins began to play as youngsters, forming various bands which played throughout the South as the Butler Twins until they relocated to Detroit in 1960. Dropping out of music for a decade, they reunited after meeting Uncle Jessie White, who had also dropped out of music for some 20 years before returning to it during the Detroit version of the blue ..read more

By Dr. Barry Lee Pearson Eddie Burns (1928-2012) was born in Belzoni, Massachusetts, and was raised by his grandparents around Clarksdale in the heart of the Delta. His father played guitar, piano, and harmonica. Eddie took up harmonica around age 10, inspired by Sonny Boy Williamson number two (Rice Miller), when he later worked with him in Detroit, Michigan. Leaving Mississippi in 1946, he worked for the Illinois Central Railroad in Illinois and Iowa, teaming up with guitar player Johnny Smith Iowa, with whom he moved to Detroit in 1948. There he learned guitar, mentored by John Lee Hooker ..read more