redandwhiterag 
Or to give it its full title “The Record Men: Chess Records and the Birth of Rock & Roll“, this has been described as a tour-de-force history of Chess Records and the business of Rock & Roll. On the south side of Chicago in the late 1940s two immigrants – one a Jew born in Eastern Europe, the other a black blues singer from Mississippi – met and changed the course of musical history. Interesting as a starter for ten don’t you think.
He was around at the start of one of the great periods in American popular music. He had a direct and leading influence on some of the most exciting music ever recorded. He was a partner in Atlantic Records, which is possibly the greatest example of an independent record company that was run by music enthusiasts but managed to be commercially viable.
Grammy Award-winning historian Rob Bowman discloses the behind-the-scenes deals and business transactions that contributed to the rise and fall of Stax Records. It appears to tell the real inside story of the landmark label. Written with such authority that you feel you’re almost there in the studios which produced all that great music.
If you read one work about Rhythm and Blues (and rock and roll), this probably has to be it. The book has its origins in a Masters thesis as far back as 1966. This background probably accounts for the fact that it is structurally sound and possessed of proper depth which is often lacking in publications of this type – but don’t be put off, the book is immensely readable.
Peter Guralnick is a writer of some of the finest books on popular music – I could just as easily have recommended “Feel Like Going Home” and “Lost Highway”, profiles of some of the most interesting musicians in American popular music. This one is subtitled ‘Rhythm and Blues and the Southern Dream of Freedom’, which aptly sums up the book’s heart.
Aretha is indisputably the ‘Queen Of Soul’ and the greatest vocalist of the soul genre! There have been very many fine soul vocalists over the years, and soul buffs will each have their favourite and no doubt many will disagree with my assessment. But there is no-one, male or female, who recorded so consistently with such passion, power, grace and finesse.
Alexander was a smooth and plaintive vocalist who married country and soul in a way which many admirers find unique. What is without question is that he produced music both enduring and extremely influential. Included ahead of far more popular and well known singers, both for his influence on those who followed and for his marriage of soul, country and pop stylings.
Probably the best known bluesman in the world and still active right up until shortly before his death in 2015! He’s had hits in every decade since he started recording over 50 years ago and in his time he’s recorded in a variety of styles and collaborated with many other artists, choosing collaborations with performers as musically diverse as Diane Schuur and U2.
When I ported over some of the entries from the old Shades Of Blue site, I limited the number of artists to twenty. Only recently, as I started to add to the initial list, did I notice a ridiculous bias against the female protagonists – so here is the first of a few to redress that initial chauvinistic imbalance, however unintentional. Most people know Betty Everett only for ‘The Shoop Shoop Song (It’s In His Kiss)’, but there was far more to her music than that. Although her output was a little variable, she’s has actually always been one of Shades’ favourite singers.
Everyone has their favourite artists and Bland is mine, at least in the R&B idiom. Bobby straddled the charts over many years and recorded in a variety of styles, but without widespread commercial pop success. Always a blues ballad stylist without peer, he had little difficulty in adapting to create the soul/blues hybrid represented by his albums from the 70s onwards.
One of the great guitar players but often underrated and sometimes criminally ignored, ‘Gatemouth’ was originally influenced by jazz players, which lead to a fluidity of style seldom found in other blues players. He is also a renowned multi-instrumentalist and plays harmonica, banjo, drums and, particularly, the fiddle. His music reflects an eclectic upbringing, where he was exposed to country, cajun and jazz as well as the blues.
The Clovers have a special place in the history of R&B as the first genuinely successful vocal group on the Atlantic label. They actually started out in Washington in 1946, built a career recording smooth ballads and bluesy jumps, and in the process became one of the most popular vocal groups of the 50s. They certainly weren’t a doo-wop group, although they were often categorised within that genre – if anything they were a typical R&B band with the vocalists taking many of the traditional instrumental parts.