Featured artist: Robert Jr. Lockwood
From the first shimmering notes of Stake A Claim, you know this is no run-of-the-mill blues number; and it only gets better.
With a road-weary, dusty voice, Lockwood effortlessly conveys a sense of longing and immediacy; while on guitar, he soars with awe-inspriringly uninhibited playing the likes of which are rarely heard in the traditional blues format.
Backed here by a talented ensemble laying down a rich yet subdued tapestry, Lockwood is able to express himself fully and freely.
The whole makes for a blissful listening experience.
One of the last surviving roots bluesmen of the twentieth century, Robert Jr. Lockwood has been playing music professionally since 1930.
His stepfather, the deified Robert Johnson, taught him to play the guitar.
A studio session player during Chess Records' heyday, he has played with such legends as Sonny Boy Williamson II (Rice Miller), Little Walter, Roosevelt Sykes, Sunnyland Slim, and Eddie Boyd.
Lockwood has been recording and performing as a solo artist since 1970 and continues to do so today.
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SIX DEGREES OF
BLUES: Conceived
and written by Emanuel Pordes
With
a curiosity that begins in the delta and extends to the stratosphere,
Emanuel Pordes is a blues lover for whom the addiction to 12 bar
has no downside. Where there's good blues to be had, whether it
be old, lost, neglected, co-opted, or buried under the charts,
that is where he likes to be. He
produced Six Degrees of Blues at WGRE 91.5
