Living With The Blues

They sing about it a million times over. Some musicians sound like it and some may look like it. But it takes a real blues musician to actually live the blues. They are far and between but they can be found in the back woods or in the deep alleys. Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee are living the blues. They are probably the greatest blues duo to ever grace the stage. Here you can hear Sonny with his deafening holler in between blowing on the harmonica while Brownie explains how blue it can be. Sonny and Brownie were not only big in the blues world but they also took the folk world by storm while influencing Bob Dylan, Pete Seegar, Dave Van Ronk, Fred Neil and many more after performing all over New York City. Listen to them sing of the blues and you can just close your eyes and feel it. It sends chills up and down your spine.

A Folkin Bunch Of Rockers

Starting off as a psychedelic band, Traffic dabbled into the ever expanding category of folk rock. Joining The Byrds, Gram Parsons, Bob Dylan, etc they released the ever classic album John Barleycorn Must Die. The song John Barleycorn is an old English folk song that was in a collection of English folk songs by Cecil Sharpe in the early 1900s. There are many versions of the song and is translated in a wide array of languages. The song can be dated back to 1465. Here Traffic sings John Barleycorn with a great arrangement done very well by the band leader Steve Winwood. Other songs on this album were all written by Steve Winwood and drummer Jim Capaldi and are all written in the folk rock sound of the 60s.