Blues Moments in Time...

From W.E.B. Du Bois’ intellectual scaffolding to Mississippi’s fraught readmission to the Union, this episode traces how February 23 threads through the social, political, and musical birth of the blues. We follow recording milestones from Bertha “Chippy” Hill to Oliver Nelson, and celebrate the legacies of Johnny Winter, Melvin Taylor, Big Maceo Merriweather, and John Little John. Together, their stories reveal how one date illuminates the blues as protest, survival, and enduring artistic innovation.

Hosted by: Kelvin Huggins

Presented by: The Blues Hotel Collective - your home for EVERYTHING BLUES.

Website: https://www.theblueshotel.com.au/

Keep the blues alive.

© 2026 The Blues Hotel Collective.

February 22 charts the blues slipping through the front door of mainstream culture and roaring back as a modern protest voice. In this episode of Blues Moments in Time, we follow Elvis Presley’s 1956 hit “Heartbreak Hotel” as a slow-blues “Trojan horse” that smuggled Beale Street feeling onto the pop charts and accidentally sparked a 1960s blues revival, sending young listeners digging for Muddy Waters, Son House, and Howlin’ Wolf.

We then jump to 2019 and Gary Clark Jr.’s This Land, where fuzz-drenched riffs turn Woody Guthrie’s optimism into a battlecry of Black ownership and survival. Along the way, we drop into Jabo Smith’s 1929 “Sleepy Time Blues” as the Delta puts on a sharp Chicago “city suit,” and honor Texas Johnny Brown, Ernie K‑Doe, Papa John Creach, and Linsey Alexander—artists who prove the blues is still a living, breathing documentary of the Black experience.

Hosted by: Kelvin Huggins

Presented by: The Blues Hotel Collective - your home for EVERYTHING BLUES.

Website: https://www.theblueshotel.com.au/

Keep the blues alive.

© 2026 The Blues Hotel Collective.

February 21 captures the blues in motion—from revolution to the White House, from “race records” to the pop charts. In this episode of Blues Moments in Time, we trace how the 1965 assassination of Malcolm X pushed Black American music from polished optimism into a grittier, electrified, politically charged sound that helped fuel funk and blues‑rock, and how B.B. King’s 1970 hit “The Thrill Is Gone” broke through the pop Top 20, tearing down the wall between segregated “race records” and mainstream America.

We then jump to the 2012 “Red, White, and Blues” concert at the White House, where President Barack Obama joined Buddy Guy and B.B. King on “Sweet Home Chicago”—a surreal vindication for a music born in the Jim Crow South. Along the way, we honor the births of Nina Simone and Corey Harris, and the twin 2013 losses of Magic Slim and Cletha Staples, whose lives embodied the tavern and church branches of the blues.

Hosted by: Kelvin Huggins

Presented by: The Blues Hotel Collective - your home for EVERYTHING BLUES.

Website: https://www.theblueshotel.com.au/

Keep the blues alive.

© 2026 The Blues Hotel Collective.

This episode traces the powerful crossroads of February 20—from Frederick Douglass’s passing in 1895 and the rise of the blues under Jim Crow, to the electric defiance of the 1956 Montgomery Bus Boycott. We jump to 1962, when Lightning Hopkins improvised a blues tribute as John Glenn orbited Earth, and spotlight key February 20 birthdays that shaped the genre. A date that proves the blues doesn’t just remember history—it reports it, responds to it, and plays a little louder every time.

Hosted by: Kelvin Huggins

Presented by: The Blues Hotel Collective - your home for EVERYTHING BLUES.

Website: https://www.theblueshotel.com.au/

Keep the blues alive.

© 2026 The Blues Hotel Collective.

February 19th captures the blues in motion—from global Black consciousness to the electrified sound of mid‑century Chicago and the roar of arena rock. We begin in 1919, when W.E.B. Du Bois convenes the first Pan‑African Congress in Paris, laying the intellectual groundwork for the New Negro movement and building the cultural confidence that helped open the recording industry to Black artists like Mamie Smith just a year later.

The date also intersects with World War II and the “Double V” campaign. On February 19, 1945, as U.S. forces land on Iwo Jima, Black Marines fight abroad while demanding dignity at home. Returning veterans refuse Jim Crow and head north, fueling the Great Migration and transforming the blues from rural folk expression into an electrified urban shout.

That same day in Chicago, Big Bill Broonzy records with Big Maceo and Buster Bennett, capturing the “Bluebird beat”—a polished, swinging bridge between Delta roots and the amplified power soon to define Muddy Waters’ era.

We also mark the birth of Mississippi’s Sam Myers in 1936, a drummer‑turned‑harmonica powerhouse whose voice carried the stark truths of life and death, and the 1980 passing of AC/DC’s Bon Scott, a rocker whose shouting, 12‑bar swagger showed just how far the blues could travel.

February 19th stands as a snapshot of transition—intellectual, political, and musical—showing how the blues moves from Paris to Chicago to global stages without ever losing its pulse.

Hosted by: Kelvin Huggins

Presented by: The Blues Hotel Collective - your home for EVERYTHING BLUES.

Website: https://www.theblueshotel.com.au/

Keep the blues alive.

© 2026 The Blues Hotel Collective.