Merry Christmas to all our readers.
Here are some Christmas blues.
Chuck Berry – Run, Run Rudolph
Chuck Berry and Keith Richards – Run Run Rudolph
John Lee Hooker – Blues For Christmas
Lightnin’ Hopkins – Santa
Albert King – Santa Claus Wants Some Lovin’
The Drifters – Santa’s Got The Blues
Denise Lasalle – Santa’s Got The Christmas Blues
Wanda Jackson & the Continentals – Merry Christmas Baby
Many of our readers may have already seen this video of Stevie Ray Vaughan and Albert King performing in a Hamilton, Ontario TV studio on 6 December 1983. For those who haven’t, this one is well worth watching and listening to.
We came across these videos of Jesse Fuller.
Jesse Fuller was born in Georgia and later moved to California so he’s not a Mississippi bluesman. But we thought our readers would enjoy these videos anyway.
The first two videos are from a 1968 Seattle TV station recording. We think these were made by the Seattle PBS station KCTS but we have to do more research before stating that conclusively.
In Part 1 notice that Jesse Fuller is using a folded pocket knife as a slide at about 4:00. This technique was described by W.C. Handy in his autobiography and Handy noted having seen an unnamed guitar player using it while waiting at the Tutwiler, Mississippi train station circa 1903. There is a Mississippi Blues Trail marker at the site of the now demolished train station in Tutwiler, Mississippi
This one is audio only. It’s a recording of a 1962 Jesse Fuller performance at the University of Chicago. The audio is good quality.
We will add some recommended recordings of Jesse Fuller in due time.
We came across this short documentary about Lightnin’ Hopkins, featuring Jimmie Vaughan and B.B. KIng.
Also see our webpage about Lightnin’ Hopkins.
We came across this video of Lightnin’ Hopkins doing Big Joe Williams’ Baby Please Don’t Go in the early 1960’s.
Here’s a lesson by Stefan Grossman on how to play this song:
We came across this video of John Mayall and Mick Taylor in 1968. The video is from a French TV show produced in 1968.
Here’s a video of Buddy Guy at Red Rocks in 2013
We came across this video of Little Milton performing My Dog And Me in 1995.
Here is a video, or rather two separate videos, of a short film called The Honeydripper, featuring Roosevelt Sykes (1906-1983), one of the great 20th century blues piano players. Although the video caption says it is Big Bill Broonzy and Roosevelt Sykes. The person posting this has divided it into two separate performances: one by Roosevelt Sykes, one by Big Bill Broonzy.
We came across this video of Little Walter performing Little Walter’s Jump in 1967:
We have included this album of LIttle Walter in our Recommended Recordings.
Little Walter: Boom Boom The Singles As & Bs 1952-1960 – released on Jasmine Records