Blues Moments in Time...

In this episode, we land on February 5th—a date that traces the blues from broken promises in the cotton fields to boundary‑breaking sessions in New York studios. We start in 1866 with Thaddeus Stevens’ failed attempt to grant 40 acres to freed families, and follow how that defeat forced Black Southerners into the debt trap of sharecropping—the “pressure cooker” where field hollers hardened into the blues as an emotional escape from unkept American promises. Then we jump to 1917, when the Immigration Act choked off foreign labor, opening Northern factory doors and fueling the Great Migration that carried the music from acoustic front porches to the electrified clubs of Chicago.

From there, the calendar turns into a studio log. In 1953, Willie Mabon cuts “I’m Mad” in Chicago, taking the city’s sound in a cooler, jazz‑tinged direction that still tops the R&B charts. In 1962, Ray Charles walks into Capitol Studios to begin Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, proving that the “high lonesome” of country and the “worried mind” of the blues are two sides of the same coin—and that genre lines are meant to be crossed.

We also trace the lives tied to this date: Memphis jug band leader Will Shade, who helped define Beale Street’s 1920s sound; Al Kooper, whose work with the Blues Project helped bridge Chicago blues into the ’60s rock counterculture; Chicago guitarist Kenneth “Buddy” Scott, the lifeblood of Westside clubs when the blues slipped off the mainstream radar; and blues shouter Piney Brown, who carried the fire from the swing era into the R&B explosion. February 5th emerges as a full arc in miniature—from dusty promises and forced labor to city lights, crossover hits, and revival scenes—showing how the blues keeps turning hard history into enduring truth.

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 turns to February 4th, a date where civil rights, commerce, and the blues all collide. We begin in Tuskegee, Alabama, with the birth of Rosa Parks—the “mother of the civil rights movement”—and trace how her quiet refusal in 1955 echoes the core themes of the blues: sorrow, resolve, and the demand to be treated as human. Her era becomes the backdrop for modern electric blues, as Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf plug in and give that struggle a roaring voice.

We then move to 1971, when Major League Baseball finally agrees to honor Negro League players in the Hall of Fame, a moment that mirrors the music industry’s late recognition of “race records” as American masterpieces. From there, the story shifts to money and mainstream power: Johnny Winter’s record‑shattering $600,000 Columbia deal in 1969 proves the blues can fill arenas, and the 1977 release of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours shows how a band that started as Chicago blues disciples could transform that language into one of the biggest pop albums of all time.

Along the way, we spotlight the births of Mississippi‑born guitarist Joe Beard, who carried Delta DNA to Rochester, and harmonica ace Curtis Salgado, whose mentorship of John Belushi helped spark The Blues Brothers phenomenon. We close by honoring the deaths of Louis Jordan—the “King of the Jukebox” whose jump blues lit the fuse for rock and R&B—and Cecil Gant, the “GI singing sensation” who proved a bluesman could shake the house and break your heart at the piano. February 4th emerges as a snapshot of how the blues moves: from bus seats to ballparks, from juke joints to platinum records, always insisting on dignity and leaving its fingerprints on everything it touches.

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 sits with February 3rd—a single date that reads like a compressed history of Black struggle, joy, and reinvention through the blues. We start in 1870 with the ratification of the 15th Amendment, tracing how the promise of the vote and its betrayal in Reconstruction hardened field hollers into 12‑bar blues, the emotional soundtrack of disenfranchisement and sharecropping. We then move to 1956, when Autherine Lucy walked onto the campus of the University of Alabama, her fight for dignity echoing the quiet demands embedded in 1950s blues lyrics.

From there, we step onto the diamond in 1920 as Rube Foster launches the Negro National League, drawing a powerful parallel between the Negro Leagues and the Chitlin’ Circuit—two traveling ecosystems of Black excellence sharing the same roads, hotels, and communities. The date then becomes a studio logbook: Muddy Waters cutting “My Eyes Keep Me in Trouble” in 1955 with Little Walter and Willie Dixon, Bob Dylan’s early blues‑soaked demos in 1961, and The Blues Brothers’ A Briefcase Full of Blues hitting number one in 1979, dragging Chicago and Memphis grooves into suburban living rooms and jump‑starting a mass blues revival.

We spotlight the births of Johnny “Guitar” Watson—space‑age jump‑blues pioneer turned funk‑blues icon—and Jesse “Baby Face” Thomas, whose decades‑long career anchors the Texas sound. Finally, we confront February 3rd as a day of loss: the death of session wizard Wild Jimmy Spruill, and the 1959 plane crash that took Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper—a moment remembered as “the day the music died,” but also a deep cut to the blues, as Holly’s Bo Diddley‑inspired rhythms carried the music to the world. February 3rd emerges as a living ledger of resilience, where ballots, ballparks, and backbeats all feed the same river called the blues.

Hosted by: Kelvin Huggins

Presented by: The Blues Hotel Collective

Keep the blues alive.

© 2026 The Blues Hotel Collective.

In this episode, we turn the calendar to February 2nd and watch the blues reshape itself—on stage, in the streets, and across the ocean. We begin in 1904 with the marriage that created “Ma and Pa Rainey,” tracing how Gertrude “Ma” Rainey rose to become the “Mother of the Blues,” standardizing the 12‑bar form, mentoring Bessie Smith, and turning a traveling act into a cultural force.

From there, we jump to 1948, when President Harry Truman’s civil rights message to Congress—calling for an end to poll taxes and lynching—echoed the dignity and defiance long sung on the Chitlin Circuit, where Black musicians faced Jim Crow every night on the road.

We then follow the “rebellious child of the blues” into rock and roll: Buddy Holly’s final Winter Dance Party show in 1959, and the Beatles’ first professional gig outside Liverpool in 1962, where British bands absorbed Muddy Waters and Chuck Berry and sold the blues back to the world.

Finally, we trace a poetic twist in the story of the Mississippi Sheiks: the birth of guitarist Walter Vincent in 1901, the death of bassist Sam Chapman in 1983—both on February 2nd—bookending a legacy that runs from “Sitting on Top of the World” to the outer edges of the genre with James Blood Ulmer’s boundary‑breaking blend of blues, funk, and free jazz. February 2nd emerges as a day when the blues marries tradition to rebellion, and local struggle to global sound.

Hosted by: Kelvin Huggins

Presented by: The Blues Hotel Collective

Keep the blues alive.

© 2026 The Blues Hotel Collective.

On this episode, we zoom in on a single date—February 1st—and uncover how it became a crossroads of freedom, protest, and musical reinvention in blues history. We trace the arc from the 1865 signing of the 13th Amendment and National Freedom Day to the start of Black History Month, framing the blues as a living “sonic record” of the journey from emancipation to the ongoing fight for equality.

We then move to Greensboro, 1960, where four students at a lunch counter helped turn the old Delta moan into a sharper, louder weapon for justice, reshaping the blues into music of direct protest. From there, we drop the needle on February 1st, 1965, as James Brown records “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag,” bending the 12‑bar form into a new rhythmic heartbeat and pushing the blues into funk for a new generation.

Along the way, we honor the births of poet Langston Hughes—whose pages “bled blues”—and slide guitar visionary Sonny Landreth, as well as the passing of Chicago Westside masters John Little John and Jimmy Johnson. February 1st emerges not just as a date, but as a living marker of how the blues remembers, resists, and reinvents itself.

Hosted by: Kelvin Huggins

Presented by: The Blues Hotel Collective

Keep the blues alive.

© 2026 The Blues Hotel Collective.