WE’VE GOT MORE BLUES – OUR LINKS PAGE
As we all know the internet is an endless fountain of information and there is plenty about blues music. You can find artists biographies, discographies, song lyrics, several Halls of Fame, sites devoted to individual instruments and lots more. Whether you want more information about tunes and artists featured in Blues @ The Junction or are just driven by curiosity you could start with the following links.
wikipedia.com – easiest one volume source for blues information, with pages for artists biographies and individual songs.
blues.about.com – broad based site, has articles and information about many aspects of blues.
bluessearchengine.com – If you want to get in deep this is the place. Once you get past the rather blank home page (click on a category below the search line) you will be surfing for hours.
allmusic.com – extensive list of artist biographies and sound clips.
discogs.com – a valuable database of record labels, track listings and more, plus buy and sell vinyl, CDs etc.
thecountryblues.com – this site focusses on modern acoustic blues. The home page lists a broad range of (mostly) living acoustic blues players and a click on a name brings up the artist biography as well as a music video – that’s a nice touch. They also have a 6 hour podcast, handily divided into half hour sections, covering the history of blues up to the rise of Chicago style electric blues, and finishing with an overlook of modern acoustic blues music. While the podcasts are presented in a cool, academic style they are a mine of informaton on blues history and the song samples are well chosen with excellent sound quality.
blues.org – the home of The Blues Foundation, dedicated to preserving and promoting blues. It has many interesting pages under the “What Is The Blues” tab. If you have the time, listen to the 13 episode radio series narrated by Keb Mo covering the history of the blues; lots of music and interviews keep it interesting.
youtube.com – an ever expanding range of blues, old and new.
archive.org – great resource for out of copyright blues recordings you can download free. Plus much other music (strangely, lots of Grateful Dead), books and movies for free download.
kplu.org and wgmcjazz901.org – The internet is awash with blues radio stations. Here are the websites of a couple of the U.S. National Public Radio stations to begin with. The music content is mostly jazz but it’s worth checking out the “Blues Time Machine” pages on kplu, and “Big Road Blues” on wgmc for live streaming and good background information to their playlists.
dawgfm.com – Feeling patriotic? Then try Canada’s first blues radio station.
lyricsfreak.com – largest collection of lyrics we’ve come across. Under the “genres” tab you will find every popular music genre. Many of which you will never have heard of – it includes more than 50 blues styles. Be warned, anyone can contribute which leads to some weird interpretations.