Thank you Chef John for bringing the blues back to the Northern Palm Beachs! 
Everyone, please check out the Blues Fest going on all Memorial Day Weekend, Thursday-Monday evening.
JP Soars is a hot band, saw him open for Johnny Winter in Fort Lauderdale last year. He will be playing Thursday evening @ 11pm, just one of the three bands featured that night.
Thank You again Chef John
bluesryder

Albert King is a true Blues Master.  It has to be noted that his style of playing is differnt than almost every other guitar player in the world.  You see, he learned how to play the guitar, upside-down.  Now this is not that unusual, a lot of left handed guitar players do the same, the difference is that Albert never changed the strings.  He not only plays the guitar upside down, but plays it with the strings upside down as well.  In other words...the low e string is on the bottom of the neck, not the top! 

Grammy Award-winning blues legend Koko Taylor, 80, died on June 3, 2009 in her hometown of Chicago, IL, as a result of complications following her May 19 surgery to correct a gastrointestinal bleed. On May 7, 2009, the critically acclaimed Taylor, known worldwide as the “Queen of the Blues,” won her 29th Blues Music Award (for Traditional Female Blues Artist Of The Year), making her the recipient of more Blues Music Awards than any other artist. In 2004 she received the NEA National Heritage Fellowship Award, which is among the highest honors given to an American artist. Her most recent CD, 2007’s Old School, was nominated for a Grammy (eight of her nine Alligator albums were Grammy-nominated). She won a Grammy in 1984 for her guest appearance on the com pilation album Blues Explosion on Atlantic Born Cora Walton on a sharecropper’s farm just outside Memphis, TN, on September 28, 1928, Koko, nicknamed for her love of chocolate, fell in love with music at an early age. Inspired by gospel music and WDIA blues disc jockeys B.B. King and Rufus Thomas, Taylor began belting the blues with her five brothers and sisters, accompanying themselves on their homemade instruments. In 1952, Taylor and her soon-to-be-husband, the late Robert “Pops” Taylor, traveled to Chicago with nothing but, in Koko’s words,

BB KIng and Buddy Guy preformed last week together at The Kravis Center in West Palm Beach on February 9th.  The ecoustics at this venue are second to none!  The show was wonderful, the music sizzled.....  These great showmen really gave the audience a show to remember.....

Go to bluesryder.com for the schedule....check under "Events & Happenings"

She was also the greatest of the classic Blues singers of the 1920s. Bessie started out as a street musician in Chattanooga.  Bessie was one of the biggest African-American stars of the 1920s and was popular with both Whites and African-Americans, but by 1931 the Classic Blues style of Bessie Smith was out of style and the Depression, radio, and sound movies had all damaged the record companies' ability to sell records so Columbia dropped Smith from its roster.  In 1933 she recorded for the last time under the direction of John Hammond.  Bessie had started to style herself as a Swing musician and was on the verge of a comeback when her life was tragically cut short by an automobile accident in 1937. While driving with her lover Richard Morgan (Lionel Hampton's uncle) in Mississippi their car rear-ended a slow moving truck and rolled over crushing Smith's left arm and ribs. Smith bled to death by the time she reached the hospital.

The South Florida International Blues Festival will be jheld at Nova Southeastern University, Nov 7 - 9, 2008.  Kenny Wayne Shepard will headline along with many other great blues musicians.  Check it out: http://www.huizenga.nova.edu/BLUESFEST/

B.B. King recently turned 83.  His performance at the Crossroads concert was inspiring.  His voice is still strong, and his notes are deliberate.  B.B. King is credited for "cleaning up" the lyrics to blues music and making the genre more mainstream.  He has been a great ambassador for Blues Music the world around.

Marion "Little Walter" Jacobs toured with the Rolling Stones in 1964!

Little Walter is being featured today.  He was a blues harp icon and innovator.  Unfortunately for the world we lost him at age 37, in 1968 due to head injuries from a street fight.....what a loss!