


Help dead blues artists get stoned.

When blues stars were pop stars.
And why we prefer blues to pop music. Because the title of this blog is Paul Merry Blues, it’s easy to assume blues is the only music I’m interested in. Nothing could be further from the truth. People have referred to me as Mr Bluesman, something I’m definitely not,...
1938’s HEAVYWEIGHT BLUES CLASH.
W.C. Handy and Jelly Roll Morton clash on paper as Joe Louis puts Nazis’ champ on canvas. In a fight with enormous political implications, black heavyweight champ, Joe Louis, successfully defends his world title against Hitler’s Max Schmeling. WW2 started...
ROCK ‘N’ ROLL’S FORGOTTEN FATHER.
REMEMBERING LESTER MELROSE: 1891 – 1968. THE FIRST FATHER OF CHICAGO BLUES. Move over Sam Phillips. Not only is Chicago’s Lester Melrose a serious contender for the title ‘Father of Rock ‘n’ Roll’ but he’s the only one I’ve heard of who links the birth of blues in the...
WHEN PIRATES SHIPPED IN AMERICA’S FIRST SLAVES.
AMERICA’S GIFT: THE UNTOLD STORY OF HOW BLUES EVOLVED. EXCERPT FROM CHAPTER TWO. The genesis of the blues as a style of music began with one of the biggest crimes against humanity, the evil that is slavery. The African slave trade, in particular, had been...
FIRST EVER MENTIONS OF THE BLUES
AMERICA’S GIFT: THE UNTOLD STORY OF HOW BLUES EVOLVED – CHAPTER ONE. Long before the blues became a genre of American music, it was an expression used to describe an English frame of mind. The word blues almost certainly derives from what people,...
TOM MORELLO. TOMORROW’S JIMI HENDRIX?
Is former Rage Against the Machine Guitarist, Tom Morello, today’s version of Jimi Hendrix? You’ll have to listen to Tom’s new album, ‘The Atlas Underground’, released tomorrow (October 12), to find out. It’s an ambitious statement regarding an...
Realising I’d never be a top guitarist.
It’s indisputable, I’d guess, that most top lead guitarists are people who are good with their hands, whose fingers exude dexterity. They excel at fixing and making things, DIY, working with wood, constructing models, tinkering with car engines, that sort of thing....