To hear Ernie Vincent and the Top Notes’ 1970s single “Dap Walk” for the first time is like standing in a hurricane of funk. “Hey, get up, brothers! Don’t sit there with your head hangin’ down,” Vincent shouts. “Hey, get up, brothers! I know the ghetto’s got your down. But there’s something I wanna […]

Turns out that we’re not the only ones who believe that our partner artist Alabama Slim’s January album, “The Parlor,” is a masterful take on the blues. Here is a roundup of all the critical praise the album has received, and you’ll find links to stream and to buy the album at the bottom. “Authentic […]

“I went to Mr. Jefferson because a guy told me Mr. Jefferson had wood. And he said, ‘Vines, I’m gonna tell you right now. You’re black and I’m white. That wood there came off a hanging tree.’ I said, ‘I don’t even believe that.’ He said, ‘I don’t give a damn what you believe. They […]

“Ma told me all the time. ‘The Ku Klux Klan is gonna get you, boy, hanging ’round with that white man.’” — Freeman Vines For the exhibition of Freeman Vines’ Hanging Tree Guitars, Music Maker commissioned Dr. Will Boone of North Carolina State University to write a series of four historical essays to give context […]

By Jed Finley These days it seems like everybody’s got the blues. At least that’s what Pat “Mother Blues” Cohen tells me. “I think a lot of people have the blues these days. It’s behind the frustration, this COVID nonsense, and the politics. People are still mad, what are they mad at? What do they […]