Farewell Diane “Mama” Ray
The Paola Roots Festival was started in 1990 by a group of friends wanting to re-create old-style family and community potlucks/picnics.
Blues in the Bottoms Artist: Kevin Burt
For more than 25 years, Kevin Burt has been electrifying audiences throughout the Midwest, dispelling the myth that true blues has no roots in Iowa.
Blues in the Bottoms 3
Blues in the Bottoms returns for its third year, featuring Kevin Burt, Selwyn Birchwood, and headliner D.K. Harrell!
Paola Roots Festival 2025 Review
The Paola Roots Festival was started in 1990 by a group of friends wanting to re-create old-style family and community potlucks/picnics.
Book Review: Sensation Blues
The author sets out to write a blues novel to honor the blues and mythological figures that excited him as a kid. Performers like Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, B.B. King, Chuck Berry, Howlin’ Wolf and others always thrilled him as an inspiring combination of wisdom and coolness.
Review in Retrospect: LeadBelly
The rich material could’ve been grittier, but you do see the threadbare lives of folks making do in harsh circumstances, and understand why they were happy to shake a tailfeather at that after hours joint.
Member and Volunteer Appreciation Event, 2025
The Kansas City Blues Society is excited to present Brigett & Her Bandoliers at our Member and Volunteer Appreciation Event on September 15, 2025.
A Home for Blues News Magazines
If you’ve been wondering what to do with your stack of old Blues News newsletters that you couldn’t bear to part with, here’s some good news.
Attention All Blues Lovers/Cruise Lovers — they’re baaack!
One very lucky person will a win a cabin for two on the Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise (LRBC) #44. It sets sail from Ft. Lauderdale, FL to St. John, St. Maarten, and Half Moon Cay (Bahamas Private Island), from January 24-31, 2026. Get your tickets now!
The cruise raffle ticket is an annual fundraiser for the KCBS. Thank you for your support!
Buy early, buy often!
Album Reviews
Album Review: Good Company
Piper and the Hard Times was the 2024 winner in the Best Band category of the International Blues Challenge.
Album Review: Ridin’ the Blinds
Brandon Hudspeth and Jaisson Taylor rework Mississippi Delta Blues in a way that pays homage and reinvents them at the same time.
Album Review: Faded Picture Blues
All songs are reminiscent of Huddie Ledbetter (Leadbelly) with stripped down guitar and vocals.
Album Review: It’s Hot!
This collection has nice horns throughout and adequate vocals — we both enjoyed reviewing it.
Album Review: The Blues Project
There are many other Blues Project compilations on the internet — this one is cool.
Album Review: California Trap
Andrew Duncanson is the voice and guitarist of the southern Illinois based Kilborn Alley Blues Band. His first solo outing, “California Trap” was just released on Run It Back Records.
Recent articles from the Blog
Check out Yesterday’s Blues
- Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton
By Doyle M. Pace, originally published in the February 1995 Blues News In 1952, Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton recorded a robust and raunchy number with a lot of innuendo and double entendre about a fed-up female who is telling a no-account, libidinous sporting man… Read more: Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton - Walter “Furry” Lewis
By Doyle M. Pace, originally published in the December 1990 Blues News Beale Street, for the first quarter of this century, was one of the roughest and toughest, most rocking and swinging, wide-open streets in the country. It was a close counterpart of Kansas City’s Eighteenth and… Read more: Walter “Furry” Lewis - Speckled Red & the Dirty Dozens
By Doyle M. Pace, originally published in the April 1994 Blues News “Playing at the Dozens” or “Putting in the Dozens” is a folk game in which two or more participants hurl insults and boasts at one another. These highly imaginative and metaphorical comments are… Read more: Speckled Red & the Dirty Dozens - Sleepy John Estes
By Doyle Pace, originally published in the November 1995 Blues News When the documentary filmmaker David Blumenthal rediscovered Sleepy John Estes in 1962, the former blues great was destitute and living in a tumbled down shack in the middle of a cotton field outside the… Read more: Sleepy John Estes - Sam “Lightnin’” Hopkins
By Doyle M. Pace, originally published in the April 1990 Blues News The Last of the Old Country Bluesmen Sam “Lightnin’” Hopkins was a bluesman who carried on the old country cotton-field style of the early Texas blues. In fact, blues historian Samuel Charters has… Read more: Sam “Lightnin'” Hopkins - Professor Longhair
By Doyle M. Pace, originally published in the February 1994 Blues News In October of 1993, New Orleans premier music club, Tipitina’s, officially changed its name to Professor Longhair’s Tipitina to honor the legendary piano player, singer, and composer who made the club his home base… Read more: Professor Longhair - Pink Anderson
By Doyle M. Pace, originally published in the February 1996 KCBS Blues News In the southeastern part of the US, the decline of employment on farms in the decades following the Civil War saw a steady and increasing movement of people from the hinterlands to… Read more: Pink Anderson - Mississippi John Hurt
By Doyle M. Pace, originally published in the Jan. 1996 Blues News A tiny gnome of a man with the countenance of an angel took the stage at the 1963 Newport Folk Festival and freaked out the rowdy audience (of mostly young white people) with… Read more: Mississippi John Hurt - Johnny Shines
By Doyle M. Pace, originally published in the FMarch 1994 Blues News Johnny Shines was a highly gifted guitar player and a literate and poetic composer of blues lyrics. He was, as well, one of our greatest bluesmen. However, through unfortunate circumstances, he never attained the… Read more: Johnny Shines