I Woke Up This Morning

Many, many blues songs start out "I Woke Up This Morning" and then the story goes downhill from there: Love Lost, Money Gone, Crops Withered ... If it is bad or sad, there's been a song written to remember it by. So why would anyone in their right mind want to listen to all this moaning and groaning over the vissitudes of life? One reason and one only, at some point in all of our lives we have been down and out in some fashion and there is nothing like the geniuses who created, played and sang The Blues to pull us up, stiffen the backbone, and make us keep on truckin'.

Well I woke up the other morning and made the mistake of asking a group of musicians and blues lovers, "So who were the five best?". Have you ever asked a perfectly innocent question and had a war break out? FAIR WARNING: Never ever ever start musicians talking about musicians. They were still fussing and contributing four hours later when I checked in for the results, so I called a halt for my purposes and told them to just "talk amongst yourselves".

The ones mentioned most often were:

Blues Singers: Billy Holiday and Ruth Brown

Blues Musicians:

Louis Armstrong
Eric Clapton
Johnny Lee Hooker
Lightnin' Hopkins
Robert Johnson
B B King
Albert King
Leadbelly
John Mayall
Rufus Thomas
Muddy Waters

Should you wish to build a fantastic blues collection, this is the best place on the web to find them all in one place: Blues Storm

Here are all the others mentioned before I called a time out with "Enough! Enough!":

Blues Singer: Etta James

Blues Musicians:

Luther Allison, Gatemouth Brown, Oscar Brown, Jr., Paul Butterfield, Albert Collins, James Cotton, Bo Diddley, Willie Dixon, Dr. John, Fats Domino, Buddy Guy, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, Whitey Johnson, Freddie King, Little Walter, Professor Longhair, Delbert McClinton, Brownie McGee, Malford Milligan, McKinley Morganfield, Bonnie Raitt, Jimmy Reed, Bobbie Rush, Otis Rush, Ko Ko Taylor, Sonny Terry, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Tom Waits, Junior Wells, Sonny Boy Williamson, Howlin' Wolf

Since this is a Monday dedicated to "Blue", let's hear it for BLUE MONDAY