Blues Moments in Time...

In this episode of Blues Moments in Time, January 22 becomes a date where money, law, and music all collide around the blues. We start in 1943 with the American Federation of Musicians recording ban, a labor showdown over royalties that shut down studio sessions and hit Black blues musicians especially hard. It’s a reminder that behind every beloved record is a fight over who gets paid, who gets credited, and who gets left out of the deal.

We then move to 1964 and the ratification of the 24th Amendment, abolishing the poll tax—a key brick pulled out of the wall of Jim Crow. That political victory reshaped the world the blues was singing about, loosening the grip of voter suppression and pushing the music’s stories of resilience and injustice into a new era of civil rights and possibility.

On the musical side, January 22 tracks the genre’s evolution. In 1957, Johnny Burnette and the Rock and Roll Trio cut “Lonesome Train on a Lonesome Road” in Nashville, a rockabilly blast that shows how directly the blues fed into early rock and carried its energy all the way to places like Australia. And in the life and work of Barry Goldberg—who would later play with Dylan at Newport and help define blues‑rock keyboards—we hear how those same roots got wired into amplifiers and pushed onto festival stages.

Threaded through the date are the lives of Hammie Nixon, the Memphis jug and harmonica man whose riffs powered Sleepy John Estes; and Sam Cooke, born this day in 1931, whose gospel‑soaked voice and songwriting carried the emotional honesty of the blues into soul and pop. January 22 reveals the blues as both protest and blueprint—a soundtrack to labor battles and voting rights, and the deep foundation under rockabilly, soul, and electrified blues‑rock.Hosted by: Kelvin Huggins

Presented by: The Blues Hotel Collective

Keep the blues alive.

© 2026 The Blues Hotel Collective.

In this episode of Blues Moments in Time, January 21 becomes a tour through the libraries, studios, and bandstands that prove the blues is both archive and engine. We start in 1982 with B.B. King’s quiet revolution: donating his massive personal collection of records to the University of Mississippi. In one move, “Blues Royalty” takes the music from juke joints to the stacks, insisting that these 78s and LPs be treated not as disposable entertainment, but as protected cultural heritage and serious history for scholars, students, and anyone willing to listen closely.

From there, we drop into Chess Records on January 21, 1957, as Chuck Berry cuts “School Days”—a rock and roll anthem built on blues riffs, storytelling lyrics, and a backbeat that would launch a thousand bands. We trace that same backbone through the drumming of Francis Clay, whose blend of jazz finesse and blues power with Muddy Waters helped define the feel of electric Chicago blues and quietly schooled a generation of British rock drummers.

January 21 is also a date of loss and lineage: the passing of Champion Jack Dupree, the New Orleans barrelhouse storyteller who kept the raw, rocking spirit of early blues alive; the death of Charles Brown, whose smooth West Coast sound proved the blues could be as elegant as it was earthy; and the birthday of Zora Young, a singer who threads traditional blues, gospel, and contemporary grooves into one living voice.

Taken together, January 21 shows the blues in all its rooms—archived in universities, roaring out of Chicago studios, rolling from New Orleans pianos, gliding through West Coast lounges, and carried forward by modern voices. It’s a reminder that the genre is not one sound but a whole house of styles, all built on the same deep foundation.

Hosted by: Kelvin Huggins

Presented by: The Blues Hotel Collective

Keep the blues alive.

© 2026 The Blues Hotel Collective.

In this episode of Blues Moments in Time, January 20 stands as one of the most powerful dual anniversaries on the blues calendar — the birth of Lead Belly in 1888 and the passing of Etta James in 2012. Together, they form a kind of hinge in American music history: one artist who turned the struggles of his era into a living cultural record, and another whose voice carried that emotional truth into the modern age with unmatched force.

We begin with Lead Belly, the Louisiana-born giant whose 12‑string guitar and booming voice made him more than a musician — he became a chronicler of America itself. His songs captured presidents, movie stars, prison walls, labor fights, and the everyday hopes of ordinary people. He sang about the Scottsboro boys, about injustice, about the South he came from, and about the world he saw changing around him. January 20 becomes a reminder that the blues has always been political, always been a voice for the voiceless, always been a record of the country’s heartbeat.

Then we turn to Etta James, whose death on this date in 2012 marked the end of one of the most emotionally fearless careers in American music. Her voice — raw, volcanic, tender, and unguarded — could shake the walls of any room. She moved effortlessly between blues, soul, and R&B, carrying the genre’s emotional vocabulary into new spaces and new generations. Her performances didn’t just tell stories; they broke your heart and stitched it back together in the same breath.

January 20 reminds us that the blues is both archive and emotion — a record of struggle and a vessel for truth. Through Lead Belly’s storytelling and Etta James’ soul-deep delivery, the date captures the full sweep of what the blues has always been: history you can feel, memory you can hear, and a living testament to the American experience.

Hosted by: Kelvin Huggins

Presented by: The Blues Hotel Collective

Keep the blues alive.

© 2025 The Blues Hotel Collective.

In this episode of Blues Moments in Time, January 19 becomes a crossroads where literature, politics, and raw musical power all collide. We begin with Edgar Allan Poe, whose birthday sets the emotional tone for the day. His “American gloom,” haunted corners, and aching sense of longing form a surprising but unmistakable emotional blueprint for the blues — the same shadows that singers later turned into moans, hollers, and truth-telling verses.

From there, the date widens into political history. Indira Gandhi’s rise as India’s first female prime minister and Betty Ford’s bold push for equality both signal a global shift toward representation — the kind of cultural opening that helped women step into the spotlight of blues, soul, and roots music with greater force and visibility. January 19 becomes a reminder that political courage and artistic courage often move in tandem.

Musically, the day stretches from the operatic fire of Verdi’s Il trovatore — whose long, lived‑in phrases seeped into American vocal traditions — to the 1994 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductions of The Animals, The Band, and Duane Eddy, all artists who built their sound on the bones of the blues. And it’s a birthday roll call of emotional heavyweights: Janis Joplin, whose voice hit like a storm front; Dolly Parton, whose songwriting carries the same struggle and soul as Delta storytellers; and Poe himself, the literary ancestor of every blues singer who ever turned pain into poetry.

We also honor the losses of Carl Perkins, the rockabilly architect whose swagger came straight from blues phrasing, and Wilson Pickett, the “Wicked” soul shouter whose gospel‑charged fire still echoes across R&B.

January 19 shows how the blues is never just a genre — it’s a long, intertwined history of struggle, storytelling, and emotional truth, stretching from Gothic literature to juke joints, from cabinet rooms to concert halls, always shaping the sound of modern music.

Hosted by: Kelvin Huggins

Presented by: The Blues Hotel Collective

Keep the blues alive.

© 2026 The Blues Hotel Collective.

In this episode of Blues Moments in Time, January 18 isn’t about one famous record—it’s about the rooms, rituals, and lives that keep the blues breathing. We drop into Sunday night residencies in Los Angeles and small, snowbound rooms at the Thredbo Blues Festival, where two-hour sets and close-up stages turn ordinary evenings into living laboratories of the blues. Here, standards get bent back toward the 12‑bar truth, and the music exists as it always has: in the air between player and listener, undocumented but unforgettable.

We trace how, when January 18 falls on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the blues takes on an extra charge—used by teachers, preachers, and activists to connect field hollers to freedom songs, turning the 12‑bar form into testimony rather than nostalgia. The date becomes a hinge between the Delta’s private pain and the public push for civil rights, reminding us that the blues is not just entertainment, but evidence of how Black Americans turned suffering into sound.

January 18 also marks the births of Motown great David Ruffin and jazz drummer Al Foster, artists who carried the emotional vocabulary of the blues into soul hooks and behind-the-beat jazz grooves. And we sit with the losses of Harlem Renaissance trailblazer Gladys Bentley—tuxedoed, barrelhouse, and defiantly queer at the piano—and Eagles co-founder Glenn Frey, whose songs rode on blues changes and drifter stories all the way to the arenas.

Taken together, January 18 is a portrait of the blues as it really lives: in bar gigs and jam sessions that never make the textbooks, in voices and beats that don’t always call themselves “blues” but feel like it anyway, and in the quiet, consistent work of turning hard history into sound.

Hosted by: Kelvin Huggins

Presented by: The Blues Hotel Collective

Keep the blues alive.

© 2026 The Blues Hotel Collective.