North Mississippi Allstars
Two brothers raised on North Mississippi hill country blues who turned that raw, hypnotic, one-chord Mississippi trance into a loud, joyful, guitar-driven live band.
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Blind Lemon Jefferson
A blind street singer from the Texas cotton country who became the first great star of the country blues. His agile guitar and high, keening voice on a stack of 1920s Paramount 78s taught a generation of guitarists what the music could be.
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Charley Patton
The father of the Delta blues, whose handful of ferocious 1929-1934 recordings became the wellspring for Son House, Howlin' Wolf, Robert Johnson, and everyone who followed. Start where American blues begins.
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Son House
A Mississippi preacher torn between the pulpit and the juke joint, Son House played the blues like a man testifying. Founding voice of the Delta, lost for decades, and rediscovered in 1964 to electrify a new generation.
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T-Bone Walker
The Texas showman who made the electric guitar sing, inventing the language of modern blues lead playing and writing Call It Stormy Monday along the way. Every guitarist from B.B. King to Eric Clapton started here.
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Eric Clapton
From the Yardbirds and Cream to Derek and the Dominos and a long solo career, one of rock's most revered guitarists, and the man who put the blues at the heart of it.
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Stevie Ray Vaughan
The Texas firebrand who single-handedly dragged the blues back into the spotlight in the 1980s, playing with a tone and ferocity no one has matched since.
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Muddy Waters
The Mississippi sharecropper who carried the Delta blues north, plugged it into an amplifier, and invented the electric sound rock and roll was built on.
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Howlin' Wolf
A giant of a man from the Mississippi Delta whose howling voice and Chess Records singles became foundational texts for rock and roll. Start with Smokestack Lightnin' and the 1962 rocking chair album.
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John Lee Hooker
The king of the boogie, who turned one hypnotic chord and a stomping foot into a sound that outlived every trend. From the raw 1948 hit Boogie Chillen to his Grammy-winning comeback The Healer.
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Robert Johnson
A traveling bluesman who recorded just twenty-nine songs before dying at twenty-seven, then became one of the century's most influential musicians.
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Reverend Gary Davis
A blind South Carolina street preacher who became one of the great fingerpicking guitarists in American history, then taught his ragtime-gospel style to a generation of folk-revival players. Start with Harlem Street Singer.
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B.B. King
The sharecropper's son who became the King of the Blues, teaching the whole world to feel a single bent note the way he did.
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Mississippi John Hurt
The gentle-voiced Mississippi songster who cut a handful of sides in 1928, then farmed in obscurity for decades until the 1960s folk revival rediscovered him. His warm, syncopated fingerpicking became foundational to American acoustic guitar.
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Mississippi Fred McDowell
The North Mississippi slide guitarist recorded by Alan Lomax in 1959, whose hypnotic, droning bottleneck style made him a central figure of the 1960s blues revival. His arrangement of You Gotta Move later reached a mass audience through the Rolling Stones.
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Lead Belly
The Louisiana songster and twelve-string guitarist recorded by folklorists John and Alan Lomax. His vast repertoire, including Goodnight Irene and The Midnight Special, became foundational American folk standards.
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Tedeschi Trucks Band
A twelve-piece American ensemble led by slide guitarist Derek Trucks and singer-guitarist Susan Tedeschi. Formed in 2010, the band blends blues, soul, gospel, and rock, and won a Grammy for its 2011 debut Revelator.
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Larkin Poe
Larkin Poe is an Atlanta blues-rock band led by sisters Rebecca and Megan Lovell, known for lap steel slide guitar and close sibling harmony across six studio albums.
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Zach Person
Zach Person is an Austin blues-rock singer, songwriter, and guitarist known for a heavy, riff-driven sound and raw live sessions, from official singles and the 2024 album Let's Get Loud to widely shared Audiotree performances.
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Bella Rayne
Bella Rayne is a teenage, self-taught guitarist and songwriter from Mendocino, California, blending Southern rock, Americana, and jam-band improvisation around a big electric guitar tone.
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The Black Keys
The Akron duo of Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney turned raw, fuzzed-out basement blues into Grammy-winning arena rock. Start with El Camino and Brothers.
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