Blog | Bill Dahl

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...

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...

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...

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,...

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....

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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