Today’s playlist takes us deep into The True Blues, featuring Ray Charles, Robert Johnson, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, Howlin’ Wolf and—how could we possibly forget?—the great B.B. King.
The blues is more than a musical form. It is testimony: music born from hardship but refusing to surrender to it. It can hold sorrow, humour, longing, faith and resilience within the same few measures. Its influence runs through gospel, jazz, rhythm and blues, rock and roll, soul, country and nearly every strand of popular music that followed.
Robert Johnson takes us back toward the mysterious beginnings of Delta blues. With little more than his voice and guitar, Johnson created recordings of extraordinary intensity—songs that would become part of the foundation upon which generations of musicians built.
Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee bring us the conversational warmth of acoustic blues. Terry’s expressive harmonica and McGhee’s guitar and voice answer one another like two old friends swapping stories on a front porch. Their music reminds us that the blues is not always dark. It can be playful, spirited and wonderfully alive.
Then comes the unmistakable force of Howlin’ Wolf. His enormous, weathered voice and the raw power of his Chicago blues recordings made him sound like no one else. There is something almost elemental in his music—a growl, a warning and a cry rising out of the same place.
No exploration of the blues would be complete without B.B. King. With his beloved guitar Lucille, King could make a single carefully chosen note say more than another player might express in an entire solo. His warmth, elegance and generosity as a performer helped carry the blues to audiences around the world without losing the emotional honesty at its heart.
And then there is Ray Charles, whose music refused to remain inside any boundary. Drawing together blues, gospel, jazz, country and rhythm and blues, Ray Charles transformed everything he touched. He understood that these traditions were not isolated categories but branches growing from interconnected roots.
Together, these artists offer several different ways into the blues—from the intimacy of a voice and acoustic guitar to the electrifying sound of a full band. Their music tells stories of struggle and survival, heartbreak and humour, loneliness and fellowship. Most of all, it reminds us that the blues does not simply dwell upon what hurts. It takes what hurts and turns it into something that can be shared.
Spend some time today with The True Blues and five of the artists who helped define its enduring sound.
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