A Music Man Like Nobody Ever Saw —Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup
(Bear Family) 2016 One of Elvis’ chief inspirations, blues legend Arthur Crudup was overdue for a complete overview of his classic...
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- Feb 14, 2021
Tony Smith & His Aristocrats
I spent quite a few of my earliest evenings on this planet inside the Cairo Supper Club. Located on Sheridan Road just north of Irving...
- Feb 2, 2021
These Great Stars are on Fire & Fury
(Sunset Blvd. Records) 2017 A three-CD selected overview of Bobby Robinson’s Harlem-based Fire and Fury labels that I curated and wrote...
- Feb 1, 2021
Cadillac Baby’s Bea & Baby Records—The Definitive Collection
(Earwig Records) 2019 Narvel “Cadillac Baby” Eatmon ran his little Bea & Baby label (and various subsidiaries) on Chicago’s South Side,...
- Feb 1, 2021
Night People: The Best of Lee Dorsey
(Sunset Blvd. Records) 2018 Three CDs jam-packed with the 1960s and ‘70s work of delightfully jovial New Orleans R&B singer Lee Dorsey....
- Jan 31, 2021
Motown: The Golden Years
(Krause Publications, 2001) This was my first book. It was a collaboration with former Motown promo man Weldon A. McDougal III, whose...
- Jan 30, 2021
Survivor: The Benny Turner Story
(Nola Blue, Inc., 2017) The autobiography of blues bassist Benny Turner, with me ghosting the text. Benny took a very hands-on approach...
- Jan 30, 2021
Gene “Daddy G” Barge
Chicago's Soul Saxophone Giant Jabbing, soaring, always sporting a soul-soaked edge, Gene “Daddy G” Barge’s tenor saxophone is as every...
- Sep 9, 2020
The Art of The Blues
(University of Chicago Press, 2016) An elegant coffee table book, rendered that way by all the extraordinary artifacts that were gathered...
- Sep 9, 2020
Hank Ballard & the Midnighters: Nothing But Good 1952-1962
(Bear Family) Everything this Detroit-based quintet cut for Federal and King during their golden decade, spread across five CDs! All...
- Sep 9, 2020
Boots Randolph
The Yakety Sax Man Every major recording center had at least one resident saxophone wailer during the 1950s and early ‘60s whose socking...
- Sep 9, 2020
Eddy Clearwater
Magic Sam and Freddy King were the Chicago West Side’s leading guitar slingers during the genre’s heyday. Eddy Clearwater was right there to