Blues Music

On a recent reporting trip, Here & Now's Peter O'Dowd and Chris Bentley stopped in Clarksdale, Mississippi, a town known as the birthplace of the blues. They speak with Mayor Orlando Paden, who runs the blues club Red's, and Shelley Ritter, executive director of the Delta Blues Museum. Then, music journalist Betto Arcos goes to Bentonia, Mississippi, to get a music and history lesson from a storied musician and owner of one of the region's remaining juke joints.

Blues in Stereo is a collection of Langston Hughes' very early works—some penned when he was just a teenager and in his early 20s. The collection, curated by Danez Smith, portends the sublime talent and abilities of Langston Hughes, a master poet who went on to help define American literature.

A massive and closely held collection of blues music and research from the 1950s and 60s is seeing the light of day.

Shemekia Copeland just won the Critics Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album of 2022 by Living Blues magazine, as well as the magazine's female Blues Artist Of The Year.

NPR's Scott Detrow talks with Smithsonian curator John Troutman and blues musician Dom Flemons about the new folk music album, Playing for the Man at the Door.

From music to various mediums of art, Texas has a long history of talent.

Bessie Smith, also known as "Empress of the Blues," recorded her first record on Feb. 15, 1923: Down Hearted Blues.

Big Mama Thornton was a big name in R&B. She's one of the many Black musicians we credit for what we today call rock & roll.