LA HORA DEL BLUES El Vídeo del Mes Monthly Recommended Vídeo

Chester Arthur Burnett (June 10, 1910 – January 10, 1976), better known as Howlin' Wolf, was an influential American blues singer, guitarist and harmonica player.

With a booming voice and looming physical presence, Burnett is commonly ranked among the leading performers in electric blues; musician and critic Cub Koda declared, "no one could match [Howlin' Wolf] for the singular ability to rock the house down to the foundation while simultaneously scaring its patrons out of its wits."Many songs popularized by Burnett—such as “Smokestack Lightnin’”, “Back Door Man” and “Spoonful”—have become standards of blues and blues rock

At 6 feet, 6 inches (198 cm) and close to 300 pounds (136 kg), he was an imposing presence with one of the loudest and most memorable voices of all the "classic" 1950s Chicago blues singers. Howlin' Wolf's voice has been compared to "the sound of heavy machinery operating on a gravel road". This rough-edged, slightly fearsome musical style is often contrasted with the less crude but still powerful presentation of his contemporary and professional rival, Muddy Waters - although the two were reportedly not that different in actual personality - to describe the two pillars of the Chicago blues representing the music.

Howlin' Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson (Rice Miller), Little Walter Jacobs and Muddy Waters are usually regarded in retrospect as the greatest blues artists who recorded for Chess in Chicago. Sam Phillips once remarked, "When I heard Howlin' Wolf, I said, 'This is for me. This is where the soul of man never dies.'" In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked him #51 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.

Los videos recomendado durante el mes de Marzo de 2010 son:
The videos selected for March 2010 are:

Nasty Boogie es una banda de blues nacida en Valencia a mediados del 2006. Aunque es una banda joven, varios de sus componentes tienen una larga trayectoria sobre sus espaldas. Interpretan desde el profundo estilo de Chicago, hasta el ritmo del californiano West Coast, pasando por la intensidad del sonido Texas. Han actuado en algunos de los más importantes festivales de España como el Rock And River en Córdoba (compartiendo cartel con Mark Hummel y Igor Prado Band), o el Almeriblues (junto a José Luis Pardo y Troublemakers). Este año lo harán el en festival internacional de blues de Cazorla (Jaén). En el 2009 publicaron su primer álbum en estudio llamado “Moanin' At Midnight”, en el que han colaborado entre otros Danny Boy, Francisco Blanco “Latino”, Sergi Escriu, Oscar Rabadán o David Giorcelli, consiguiendo muy buenas críticas. Los componentes actuales de los Nasty Boogie son Daniel “Big Shakey” Tena, voz y armónica. Raúl “T-Bonsky” Rabadán, guitarra, coros, Edu Mota, bajo y Juanjo “Malasideas” Semi, batería.

Born Amos Blackmore in Memphis, Tennessee, Wells was raised on the other side of the Mississippi River in West Memphis, Arkansas. Wells learned the fundamentals of blues harp from another soon-to-be-legend, Junior Parker, before moving to Chicago in 1946 at the age of 12 with his mother.
An often-repeated story of Wells' youth tells of the young bluesman seeing a $2.00 harmonica in a store. Since he only had $1.50 in his pocket, Wells laid his money on the counter, grabbed the harp and ran. Wells was soon caught by the police, but after the judge heard him play the instrument, he allegedly handed the shop owner the 50-cent balance and told Wells to be on his way.
Upon arriving in Chicago, Wells hooked up with guitarists Louis and David Myers, playing house parties and infrequent club dates as the Three Deuces. They later changed their name to the Three Aces, and finally just the Aces with the addition of drummer Fred Below. In a strange turn of events, when Little Walter quit Muddy Waters' band in 1952, Wells was the harp player that took his place. Little Walter subsequently hooked up with the Aces to launch his own solo career.
A year after Wells joined Waters' band, he was drafted into the army, but he went AWOL shortly afterwards. Wells returned to Chicago, played with Waters and recorded some songs of his own for the States label. Wells eventually fulfilled his military duties and was discharged in 1955. After his brief army career, Wells performed for a while with Waters, and then re-formed a version of the Aces and began touring the country.
Wells began playing with legendary blues guitarist Buddy Guy in 1958, forming a creative partnership that would last better than 20 years. Wells became a favored performer at Theresa's Lounge, Chicago's premier blues hotspot, and backed up Guy on his recordings as well as recording a few singles of his own for small labels like Profile and Chief. In 1966, Wells and Guy would make blues history, recording Wells' solo debut, Hoodoo Man Blues for Delmark Records.
Wells' debut album launched a successful career that would roll until the harp player's death in 1998. His raucous, no-holds-barred playing style appealed to young 1960s blues-rock fans, and Wells would later perform his inspired mix of Chicago-styled blues, R&B, and soul alongside rockers like Van Morrison, Eric Clapton, and the Rolling Stones. Wells even lent his talents to southern rap band Arrested Development.
Although he only recorded sporadically during the 1980s, in 1990 Wells teamed up with fellow harp masters James Cotton, Carey Bell, and Billy Branch to record the critically-acclaimed Harp Attack! album. Wells' recorded output in the '90s suffered from the artist's lack of commitment, but his final album - 1997's Come On In This House - won Wells a W.C. Handy Blues Award for Traditional Blues Album. Wells also had a cameo appearance in the film Blues Brothers 2000, which was released after his death.

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Los videos recomendado durante el mes de Febrero de 2010 son:
The videos selected for February 2010 are:

Estamos ante el punto culminante, la madurez absoluta de esta banda formada en Bilbao a finales de 2003 por un grupo de amigos locos por el Blues. Durante estos 5 largos años Travellin' Brothers ha conseguido gran prestigio en la escena bluesera del país, ha actuado en los mejores locales y festivales -Cazorla, Béjar, Hondarribia o Getxo entre otros muchos-, y ha realizado sus primeras giras por Francia, participando en festivales internacionales como Blues sur Seine en Paris o Cahors Blues Festival y compartiendo escenario con auténticas leyendas del Blues como Buddy Guy, Ike Turner, Jonnhy Winter, Jonh Mayall, Carey Bell, Ten Years After, Canned Heat, Koko Taylor, Otis Grand y un largo etc.

Aleck "Rice" Miller (died May 25, 1965) was an American blues harmonica player, singer and songwriter. He was also known as Sonny Boy Williamson II, Willie Williamson, Willie Miller, Little Boy Blue, The Goat and Footsie.
Born as Aleck Ford on the Sara Jones Plantation in Tallahatchie County, Mississippi, his date and year of birth are a matter of uncertainty. He claimed to have been born on December 5, 1899, but one researcher, David Evans, claims to have found census record evidence that he was born around 1912. His gravestone lists his date of birth as March 11, 1908
He lived and worked with his sharecropper stepfather, Jim Miller, whose last name he soon adopted, and mother, Millie Ford, until the early 1930s. Beginning in the 1930s, he traveled around Mississippi and Arkansas and encountered Big Joe Williams, Elmore James and Robert Lockwood, Jr., also known as Robert Junior Lockwood, who would play guitar on his later Checker Records sides. He was also associated with Robert Johnson during this period. Miller developed his style and raffish stage persona during these years. Willie Dixon recalled seeing Lockwood and Miller playing for tips in Greenville, Mississippi in the 1930s. He entertained audiences with novelties such inserting one end of the harmonica into his mouth and playing with no hands.
In 1941 Miller was hired to play the King Biscuit Time show, advertising the King Biscuit brand of baking flour on radio station KFFA in Helena, Arkansas with Lockwood. It was at this point that the radio program's sponsor, Max Moore, began billing Miller as Sonny Boy Williamson, apparently in an attempt to capitalize on the fame of the well known Chicago-based harmonica player and singer John Lee Williamson. Although John Lee Williamson was a major blues star who had already released dozens of successful and widely influential records under the name "Sonny Boy Williamson" from 1937 onward, Aleck Miller would later claim to have been the first to use the name, and some blues scholars believe that Miller's assertion he was born in 1899 was a ruse to convince audiences he was old enough to have used the name before John Lee Williamson, who was born in 1914. Whatever the methodology, Miller became commonly known as "Sonny Boy Williamson," (universally distinguished by blues fans and musicians as "Sonny Boy Williamson number two" or "Sonny Boy Williamson the second") and Lockwood and the rest of his band were billed as the King Biscuit Boys. In 1949 he relocated to West Memphis, Arkansas and lived with his sister and her husband, Howlin' Wolf. (Later, for Checker Records, he did a parody of Howlin' Wolf entitled "Like Wolf.") Sonny Boy started his own KWEM radio show from 1948 to 1950 selling the elixir Hadacol. Sonny Boy also brought his King Biscuit musician friends to West Memphis, Elmore James, Houston Stackhouse, Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup, Robert Nighthawk and others to perform on KWEM Radio.
In the 1940s Williamson married Mattie Gordon, who remained his wife until his death.
Trumpet Records Williamson's first recording session took place in 1951 for Lillian McMurry of Jackson, Mississippi's Trumpet Records (three years after the death of John Lee Williamson, which for the first time allowed some legitimacy to Miller's carefully worded claim to being "the one and only Sonny Boy Williamson".) McMurry later erected Williamson's headstone, near Tutwiler, Mississippi, in 1977.
Chess Records When Trumpet went bankrupt in 1955, Sonny Boy's recording contract was yielded to its creditors, who sold it to Chess Records in Chicago, Illinois. Sonny Boy had begun developing a following in Chicago beginning in 1953, when he appeared there as a member of Elmore James's band. It was during his Chess years that he enjoyed his greatest success and acclaim, recording about 70 songs for Chess subsidiary Checker Records from 1955 to 1964.
In the early 1960s he toured Europe several times during the height of the British blues craze, recording with The Yardbirds and The Animals, and appearing on several TV broadcasts throughout Europe. According to the Led Zeppelin biography Hammer of the Gods, while in England Sonny Boy set his hotel room on fire while trying to cook a rabbit in a coffee percolator. During this tour he allegedly stabbed a man during a street fight and left the country abruptly. (Robert Palmer's Deep Blues)
Sonny Boy took a liking to the European fans, and while there had a custom-made, two-tone suit tailored personally for him, along with a bowler hat, matching umbrella, and an attaché case for his harmonicas. He appears credited as "Big Skol" on Roland Kirk's live album Kirk in Copenhagen (1963)^. One of his final recordings from England, in 1964, featured him singing "I'm Trying To Make London My Home" with Hubert Sumlin providing the guitar. Due to his many years of relating convoluted, highly fictionalized accounts of his life to friends and family, upon his return to the Delta, some expressed disbelief upon hearing of Sonny Boy's touring across the Atlantic, visiting Europe, seeing the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, and other landmarks, and recording there.
Upon his return to the U.S., he resumed playing the King Biscuit Time show on KFFA, and performed around Helena, Arkansas. As fellow musicians Houston Stackhouse and Peck Curtis waited at the KFFA studios for Williamson on May 25, 1965, the 12:15 broadcast time was closing in and Sonny Boy was nowhere in sight. Peck left the radio station and headed out to locate Williamson, and discovered his body in bed at the rooming house where he'd been staying, dead of an apparent heart attack suffered in his sleep the night before.
Williamson is buried on New Africa Rd. just outside Tutwiler, Mississippi at the site of the former Whitman Chapel cemetery. His headstone was provided by Mrs. Lillian McMurry, owner of Trumpet Records.

Los videos recomendado durante el mes de Enero de 2010 son:
The videos selected for January 2010 are:

Los Reyes del K.O. son Marcos Coll y Adrian Costa, dos gallegos que unidos por su afición y dedicación al blues y a la música negra en general, han mostrado su manera de entender esta música por medio mundo. En festivales compartiendo escenarios con los más grandes como Chuck Berry, Solomon Burke, Buddy Guy, John Mayall, The Animals, The Faboulous Thunderbirds, etc. o en las más importantes salas de este genero, como el Buddy Guy's Legends en Chicago o el Terra Blues en New York.
Despues de haberse conocido de niños en el colegio, en 1993 deciden formar una banda de "blues" amateur para dar rienda suelta a su devoción por este tipo de música. Después de muchos conciertos de ámbito local en bares, casas okupadas o en la misma calle, Marcos decide irse a Madrid a probar suerte. Después de hacer todo tipo de trabajos durante el día, desde chico de almacén hasta conductor de grúa, y de tocar en diferentes formaciones y jam sessions por la noche, recibe la llamada de la banda decana de blues en España, la Tonky Blues Band. Este hecho cambiaria su vida sobre todo a nivel profesional y mas tarde también la de su "soul Brother" Adrian. Después de muchos conciertos y de acompañar a artistas como Mick Taylor (guitarrista de Rolling Stones), al cabo de un par de años llega Adrian también a la ciudad y pasa inmediatamente a formar parte de Tonky Blues Band, primero como batería, luego de bajista, para ya mas tarde acabar tocando su instrumento natural, la guitarra. Fueron unos años muy intensos, teniendo como momento culminante la gira y grabación con el legendario batería y cantante de Jimmy Hendrix, Buddy Miles. Este hecho cambio su manera de ver las cosas y fue una lección tanto musical como humana que ya nunca olvidarían.
En el 2002 ya estaban preparados para montar su propia banda. Después de reunir a una de las mejores secciones rítmicas, Javier Vacas y Antonio Alvarez, en solo dos meses ya están en el estudio grabando su primer disco “CollvsCosta”, producido por Ñaco Goñi, que más tarde ganaría el premio al mejor disco de blues en España. Los siguientes años fueron de mucho trabajo por toda la geografía nacional Muchos festivales de blues e incluso traspasando la línea entre el blues y lo comercial al tocar en eventos de pop o rock, como el programa de TVE “Musica 1”, siendo la primera banda de blues en hacerlo. Después de grabar el disco “Homemade Blues”, producido por su amigo Dani Alcover en septiembre de 2004, con motivo de su actuación en el festival de blues de Scmoltz, hacen su primera incursión en Alemania. Al ver la gran aceptación que tienen en dicho país deciden mudarse y hacer de Berlín su residencia. Con la ayuda de Michael Maass y sobre todo de Christian Rannenberg, que produce su disco “Hot Tin Roof”, (nominado para los prestigiosos premios Deutsche Schallplaten), consiguen hacerse un hueco en el panorama del blues europeo, actuando en muchos festivales de renombre, así como ganando premios como el Berlin Jazz & Blues Award 2005. En Alemania conocen a grandes músicos de blues que tienen su residencia en Europa, como Sydney "Guitar Crusher" Selby, Angela Brown, Eb Davis, Sugar Blue, Charlie Musselwhite, etc. y empiezan también a trabajar con muchos de ellos. En 2006 graban su directo en Berlín en el club de jazz y blues “Yorcksloschen”, el mítico club donde puedes verlos actuar cuando están en la ciudad.
Su música transita desde el blues mas primitivo, al mas moderno Chicago Blues, con algunas influencias funky, soul e incluso hip-hop o latino. Con su ritmo, energía y humor hacen que nadie se quede quieto, consiguiendo que mucha gente cambie el cliché que tiene sobre lo que es un concierto de blues. "I just finished listening to Los Reyes Del K.O. and it is SMOKING! Great tunes and great playing. I love it. Good for you guys!" -Charlie Musselwhite.

Martha Davis (December 14, 1917 – April 6, 1960) was an African American singer and pianist whose musical comedy act, "Martha Davis & Spouse", was popular in the late 1940s and 1950s.
Davis was born in Wichita, Kansas, and raised in Chicago, Illinois. By the mid 1930s she had met and been influenced by Fats Waller, and performed regularly as a singer and pianist in Chicago clubs. In 1939 she met, and later married, bass player Calvin Ponder (October 17, 1917 - December 26, 1970), who went on to play in Earl Hines' band.
In 1948, Davis and Ponder moved to California, and Davis developed her recording career on Jewel Records in Hollywood with a trio including Ponder, Ralph Williams (guitar) and Lee Young (drums). Their cover of Dick Haymes' pop hit "Little White Lies" reached # 11 on the Billboard R&B chart, followed by a duet with Louis Jordan, "Daddy-O", from the movie A Song Is Born, which reached the R&B top ten later that year.
Davis and Ponder also began performing together on stage, developing a musical and comedy routine as "Martha Davis & Spouse" which played on their physical characteristics (she was large, he was smaller). The act became hugely popular, touring and having a residency at the Blue Angel in New York. They appeared together in movies including Smart Politics (with Gene Krupa), and in the mid 1950s variety films Rhythm & Blues Revue, Rock 'n' Roll Revue and Basin Street Revue. Several of their performances were filmed by Snader Telescriptions for video jukeboxes, and they also broadcast on network TV, particularly Garry Moore's CBS show.
In 1957, after a break of several years, they resumed recording for the ABC Paramount label, with whom they cut two LPs. Davis died from cancer in New York in 1960, aged only 42, and Ponder died ten years later, aged only 53.

Los videos recomendado durante el mes de Diciembre de 2009 son:
The videos selected for December 2009 are:

El blues, raíz de la música moderna, ha estado siempre presente desde hace años en nuestro país con músicos pioneros como Amadeu Casa, Big Mama Montse, Dani Nel.lo, Aldo Munari, Artur Regada o August Tharrats que han sido o siguen siendo un vivo ejemplo
Con dedicación y devoción absoluta hacia el blues, Víctor y Pere Puertas comienzan en el año 2000 su proyecto más estable, The Suitcase Brothers, Suitcase (pronunciado 'sutqueis' en inglés y que significa 'maleta'), una maleta llena de blues en el caso de estos dos hermanos.
Pere, ha residido cerca de dos años en Austin, TX (USA), interpreta este estilo de música a través de la guitarra y la voz, de forma sorprendente para ser alguien que ha nacido tan lejos del sur de los Estado Unidos. Todo lo que aprendió actuando y viviendo en el país de origne del blues, hizo que volviera con la lección bien aprendida
Por su parte, Víctor es uno de los mejores armonicistas del panorama nacional y esta afirmación la hacen muchos de sus compañeros de profesión como Ñaco Goñi, Mingo Balaguer, Joan Pau Cumellas. Incluso el mismo Jerry Portnoy, armonicista de las bandas de Muddy Waters o Eric Clapton, ha coincido en este reconocimiento. Todo ello hace de este joven multi-instrumentista de gran talento natural, un valor emergente en la escena del blues nacional e internacional.
En palabras textuales de Portnoy, en una entrevista realizada en exclusiva para "la Taberna del Blues", este gran armonicista manifestó: "He conocido músicos excelentes en España. Hay un jóven armonicista de mucho talento, Víctor Puertas, que realmente me ha impresionado".
El resultado de estos años de trabajo y de crecimiento musical y a la vez personal, se plasma en este dúo que es un referente en la escena del blues de nuestro país. Sus conciertos suenan a auténtico blues y te hacen sentir esta música de tal modo que consiguen que el oyente sólo tenga ganas de escuchar más y más blues.
Festivales de Blues nacionales e internacionales en los que han participado:
Blues Cazorla, Fuerteventura. Blues en Roses, Blues Cerdanyola, Blues en Reus, Hondarribia. Blues en Sevilla, Rock and River. Washington DC, Maryland,Blues Festival en el Kennedy Center, Takoma Park Festival, Dallas, Austin, San Angelo, Bedford (Bedford Blues Festival).
Entre sus colaboraciones destacan:
Amadeu Casas, Big Mama Montse, Dani Nel.lo, Artur Regada, August Tharrats, Aldo Munari, Pep Pascual, Blas Picon, Mario Cobo, Ivan kovacevic, Balta Bordoy, Jordi Llaurens, Nestor Busquets, Marc Ruiz, Gary Primich (R.I.P), Jerry Portnoy, Miss Lavelle White, Ben Andrews, John Cephas and Phil Wiggins, Paul Rishell & Annie Raines y Steve James.
Los Suitcase Brothers han grabado algunos de los temas de la banda sonora original de la película "El Bola" del director Achero Mañas (2000), film que fue galardonado con cuatro premios Goya, de los cuales uno fue para el mejor sonido. Más tarde participaron en la seguna película del mismo director (noviembre 2003).
Tienen editados dos discos: "Living With The Blues" y "Walk On".
Actualmente siguen actuando en clubs, fiestas privadas y festivales y viajan regularmente a los Estados Unidos y preparan su tercer disco

International Blues: Freddie King
"Boogie Funk Live" (1973) y
"Ain't Nobody's Business"

Freddie King, born Billy Myles, September 3 , 1934, in Gilmer, Texas. Freddie (aka Freddy) was one of the triumvirate of Kings (the others being B.B. and Albert) who ruled the blues throughout the 60s. He was the possessor of a light, laid-back, but not unemotional voice and a facile fast-fingered guitar technique that made him laid-back, but not unemotional voice and a facile fast-fingered guitar technique that made him the hero of many young disciples. He learned to play guitar at an early age, being influenced by his mother, Ella Mae King, and her brother Leon.
Although forever associated with Texas and admitting a debt to such artists as T-Bone Walker he moved north to Chicago in his mid-teens. In 1950, he became influenced by local blues guitarists Eddie Taylor and Robert Lockwood. King absorbed elements from each of their styles, before encompassing the more strident approaches of Magic Sam and Otis Rush. Here, he began to sit in with various groups and slowly built up the reputation that was to make him a star.
After teaming up with Jimmy Lee Robinson to form the Every Hour Blues Boys he worked and recorded with Little Sonny Cooper's band, Earlee Payton's Blues Cats and Smokey Smothers. These last recordings were made in Cincinnati, Ohio, in August 1960 for Sydney Nathan's King/Federal organization. On the same day King recorded six titles under his own name, including the influential instrumental hit "Hideaway." He formed his own band and began touring, bolstering his success with further hits, many of them guitar showpieces, some trivialized by titles such as "The Bossa Nova Watusi Twist", but others showing off his "crying" vocal delivery. Many, such as "(I'm) Tore Down", "Have You Ever Loved A Woman" and particularly "The Welfare (Turns Its Back On You)", became classics of the (then) modern blues. He continued to record for King Federal up until 1966, his career on record being masterminded by pianist Sonny Thompson. He left King Federal in 1966 and took up a short tenure (1968-69) on the Atlantic Records subsidiary label Cotillion.
Ironically, the subsequent white blues-boom provided a new found impetus. Eric Clapton was a declared King aficionado, while Chicken Shack's Stan Webb indicated his debt by including three of his mentor's compositions on his group's debut album. The albums that followed failed to capture the artist at his best. This was not a particularly successful move, although the work he did on that label has increased in value with the passage of time. The same could be said for his next musical liaison, which saw him working with Leon Russell on his Shelter Records label. Much of his work for Russell was over-produced, but King made many outstanding recordings during this period and a re-evaluation of that work is overdue.
There was no denying the excitement it generated, particularly on Getting Ready, which was recorded at the famous Chess Records studio. This excellent set included the original version of the much-covered "Going Down." Live recordings made during his last few years indicate that King was still a force to be reckoned with as he continued his good-natured guitar battles with allcomers, and usually left them far behind. Burglar featured a duet with Eric Clapton on "Sugar Sweet", but the potential of this new relationship was tragically cut short December 28, 1976 when King died of heart failure at the early age of 43. His last stage appearance had taken place three days earlier in his home town of Dallas.

Los vídeos recomendados durante el mes de Noviembre 2009 son:
The videos selected for November 2009 are:

Tota, armonicista y cantante de blues, lidera desde 1995, TOTA BLUES, recreando así el blues más tradicional del 'southside' de Chicago de los años 50, 60 y 70, interpretando obras de autores tales como Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters, B.B.King, Louis Jordan, Little Walter y otros. Además cuenta con composiciones en español de su propia autoría, sin descuidar el estilo de aquellos años. TOTA BLUES ha participado en distintos eventos y festivales de blues por toda España, como el Festival de Blues, Gospel y Jazz de Roses, Festival de Blues de Reus, Festival de Blues de Cazorla, Almeriblues o el Festival de Blues de Nou Barris (Barcelona) entre otros. Cabe destacar la presencia de TOTA BLUES, ya sea compartiendo cartel como telonero o bien acompañando como "banda base" a auténticos 'bluesmen' de Chicago, artistas de la talla de Buddy Guy, Louisiana Red, Rod Piazza, John Primer, Dave Myers, James Wheeler, Raful Neal, Eddie C. Campbell, Aron Burton, Phil Guy, el británico John Mayall, etc.

Sam was born in Bolton, Mississippi, on January 10, 1899 (some sources say 1897, but his grave and his comments on The New Mississippi Sheiks album say 1899) on John Gettis's plantation near Jackson. Chatmon's family was well-known in Mississippi for their musical talents. His father Henderson Chatmon, a native of Terry, Mississippi, was an ex-slave who played the fiddle for square dances. He lived to be 105 years old and had nine sons and two daughters, all of whom seemed to have his musical ability. Chatmon's mother played the guitar.
Chatmon became interested in the guitar at the age of six, taking it down off the wall to play while his family worked in the fields and replacing it before they came home. His famous older brothers (Sam was the ninth child) Lonnie Chatmon and Bo (Armentor Chatmon) Carter performed with Walter Vinson as the Mississippi Sheiks. Sam became a member of the family's string band at a young age. The family played, according to Robert Palmer, ballads, ragtime, spirituals, popular Tin Pan Alley songs and country dance music. At the end of World War I, the Chatmon brothers formed a string band, perferring to play blues and waltzes on a regular basis for white audiences in the 1920's because it paid better. Sam also played with the Mississippi Sheiks occasionally.
In 1928 the Chatmons moved to the Delta to a town named Hollandale. The band disbanded in 1935, but in 1936 Sam and Lonnie Chatmon recorded twelve duets for Bluebird.
After the death of his brothers, Sam Chatmon became part of the New Mississippi Sheiks and played with Walter Vinson, Carl Martin, and Ted Bogan. Sam did not record during the 1940's. Instead he worked on area plantations around Hollandale. He was rediscovered in 1960 by Ken Swerilas, who talked Sam into performing again. Sam Chatmon became known primarily then as a folk blues artist. He recorded on the Arhoolie label and later with others.
Chatmon's wife was Elma Lue Chatmon. Their son later became known as Singing' Sam and was a bass guitarist who played with Elmore James.
In addition to the guitar, Sam Chatmon played the banjo, bass, mandolin, and harmonica. He toured extensively during the 60's and 70's, and played many of the largest and best-known folk festivals that included the Smithsonian Festival of American Folklife in Washington, D.C. in 1972; the Mariposa Fest in Toronto in 1974; and the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in 1976.
Of note, Sam played with Charley Patton, whom he sometimes called his half brother. Others have stated that the two were cousins, but Anna Patton, Charley's mother, and surviving Patton relatives have disputed this relationship. It is known that Charley Patton's father was a "man of God" who believed music to be evil, so Charley often slipped out of his own house to play with the Chatmon family.
Sam Chatmon was one of the few bluesman to perform with Fingers Taylor on the Blues Caravan in the 1970's and went on tour with Jimmy Buffet. Sam Chatmon continued to perform until his death on February 2, 1983. He is buried in Hollandale, MississippiI.