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Acoustic Blues
Little Pink Anderson
“Little Pink” Anderson of Spartanburg, SC began singing at medicine shows and carnivals with his legendary father Pink Anderson at the age of 3. He still performs the highly entertaining old folk songs that his Dad made famous.
Etta Baker
Etta Baker of Morganton, NC, was born in 1913 and began playing guitar at the age of 3. She was the premier female Piedmont blues guitar instrumentalist, playing the guitar everyday, and constantly working on new arrangements until just a short time before her death in September of 2006. Until…
The Branchettes
The Branchettes of Johnston County, North Carolina (Ethel Eliot and Lena Mae Perry) have been performing hymns and gospel songs together for well over twenty years. Their style and repertory have their roots in the older African-American musical traditions of congregational hymn singing.
Cora Mae Bryant
Cora Mae Bryant was the daughter of Georgia guitar legend Curley Weaver. She remembers, “When the weekend came, Daddy would come and get me. We did not know the difference between night and day.” Curley would perform from one house party to the next often meeting up with his friends…
Willa Mae Buckner
Willa Mae Buckner was born on June 15th, 1922 in Augusta, Georgia. In her days as a touring performer, Buckner was known as “The Wild Enchantress,” “Princess Ejo,” “The Snake Lady,” and “The World’s Only Black Gypsy.” Her tent show performances could enthrall any crowd. She was a true performer,…
Carolina Chocolate Drops
The Carolina Chocolate Drops are a group of young African-American stringband musicians that have come to together to play the rich tradition of fiddle and banjo music in Carolinas’ piedmont. Rhiannon Giddens and Justin Robinson both hail from the green hills of the North Carolina Piedmont while Dom Flemons is…
Ardie Dean
Ardie Dean’s infectious happy-spirited charisma drives the Music Maker Revue. He is a world-class drummer who has been with Music Maker since 1991. Dean played at Carnegie Hall with Guitar Gabriel and Tim Duffy in the original “Brothers in the Kitchen,” then the “Limestone Correctional Facility” near his home outside…
Drink Small
They call me the blues Doctor ‘cause I can play all the styles, bottleneck, ragtime, Piedmont Blues I can tear them up, Chicago Blues; I am the blues Doctor. Rich people got the blues because they are trying to keep the money, the poor people are trying to get the…
Dom Flemons
Dom Flemons is a native Arizonan and a true modern Songster, engaging audiences from the green Carolinas to the ruddy Southwest with personalized interpretations of folk, blues, early jazz and rock, country, and original material. Where else can you hear Ma Rainey, the Beatles and the Band in one pyrotechnic…
Preston Fulp
Preston Fulp grew up in Walnut Cove, an area just north of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where his family sharecropped tobacco. Preston took to music at an early age, starting to play the guitar when he was six. By his teens he was proficient on the violin and banjo and was…
Guitar Gabriel
Drink houses in Winston-Salem, North Carolina’s black community, like juke joints in the Mississippi Delta, remain a vigorous setting for the perpetuation of the blues at its most real and rooted level. A refuge for the homeless and the down-and-out, as well as a gathering place for friends and lovers,…
Elder James Goins
Elder James Goins born July 18th, 1921 is Pastor for the Spiritual Holiness Church in Simpson, South Carolina. He and his wife Mother Pauline are a classic example of performing great music at its most basic and powerful best. It just shows you how much that less is more. Their…
Boo Hanks
Boo Hanks, a descendant of Abraham Lincoln on his mother’s side, is the greatest Piedmont Blues rediscovery in many years. He sings and plays guitar in the style of the legendary Blind Boy Fuller. At the age of 79, he made his first recording and at 82 he has enjoyed…
Macavine Hayes
Macavine Hayes was born in Tampa, Florida on June 3rd 1943. His family farmed and he was the oldest of 5 sisters and 5 brothers. He remembers, “There was always something to do down on the farm, we listened to the radio and got up on the back porch and…
Big Boy Henry
Although Richard “Big Boy” Henry was an imposing figure at first glance, he was one of the sweetest, most gentle men ever to sing the blues. Born in Beaufort, North Carolina in 1921, he spent much of his life near the coast earning a modest living for himself and his…
George Higgs
George Higgs was born in 1930 in a farming community in Edgecombe County near Speed, North Carolina (“a slow town with a fast name” as he is fond of saying.) He learned to play the harmonica as a child from his father, Jesse Higgs, who enjoyed playing favorite spirituals and…
Algia Mae Hinton
Algia Mae Hinton was born on August 29, 1929 in Johnston County, North Carolina. Her parents, Alexander and Ollie O’Neal, were farmers who raised tobacco, cotton, cucumbers and sweet potatoes. Mother Ollie could play many stringed instruments and began teaching Algia when she was just nine years old. She was…
Carl Hodges
Carl Hodges of Saluda, Virginia was born in 1931 and is among the few Chesapeake Bay blues artists performing today. In true songster tradition he performs old blues, country, and gospel songs sung with his old-time vibrato laden voice.
John Dee Holeman
“His playing and singing have that special feel like they’re pouring out as natural as breathing. He’s such a genuine bluesman that I want to touch him and hope it rubs off on me.” -Harvey Arnold, Music Maker guitarist Born: April 4, 1929, Hillsborough, North Carolina Repertoire Summary: Piedmont Blues…
Ron Hunter
Ron Hunter, the world’s happiest Bluesman, owns a voice that gives people chills. It’s the kind of voice that carries warmth and tenderness, a voice that is unmistakably his own and embodies everything that’s raw, pure and beautiful about the blues. Ron Hunter (b.1953) was born in Winston-Salem, NC. His…
Lucille Lindsay
I asked Guitar Gabriel one day if he had any brothers or sisters. He mentioned that he had a sister but he had not seen her in eight years. He gave me her married name and I found her, blind from diabetes, in an awful nursing home. When I reunited…
Captain Luke
Luther Mayer, known as “Captain Luke,” was born in Greenville, South Carolina in 1926. He grew up on his grandparent’s farm in nearby Clinton, where he followed the furrows barefoot behind the plow as his Uncle Jesse worked and sang to his mule. Luke’s ambition at the time was to…
Bishop Dready Manning
You may have been going to church all your life, but chances are you have never attended a church with as much spirit as Bishop Dready Manning’s St. Mark Holiness Church outside Roanoke Rapids. Bishop Manning, a traditional guitarist, harmonica player, and gospel singer, has infused his church with music,…
Chicago Bob Nelson
Chicago Bob Nelson has played the Blues ever since he was a child. He was trained under Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters and played harp in John Lee Hooker’s Coast to Coast Blues Band for several years. Bob jammed with everyone in Chicago including Buddy Guy and Slim Harpo, which…
Bubba Norwood
Drummer James “Bubba” Norwood’s credentials are among the brightest of any MM artist. Known mostly for his long-time association with Ike and Tina Turner, James has anchored the rhythm section for a Who’s Who of blues, soul, and R&B greats. He graduated from Chapel Hill, North Carolina’s Lincoln High School…
Alabama Slim
Slim grew up playing in juke joints in Alabama and moved to New Orleans in the ‘60s. Since joining MM, his music has been felt at performances in the States and abroad and has recorded, The Mighty Flood, an album featuring Slim & Blues guitarist Little Freddie King. More about…
Albert Smith
Albert Smith (born 1912) of Rembert, South Carolina began playing the piano in 1927 when his parents bought him one from the Sears and Roebuck catalog. Albert is a lovely, soft-spoken man who at the age of 90 remains a powerful blues shouter and barrel-house pianist. Albert has remained in…
Cootie Stark
A blind street singer, he learned his stuff from Greenville, South Carolina, bluesmen Uncle Chump and Pink Anderson in the 1930’s. At 70 he rediscovered his unplugged genius and has headlined at festivals throughout the U.S. and Europe. His card catalog repertoire runs from soul classics to Piedmont blues songs…
James “Guitar Slim” Stephens
James “Guitar Slim” Stephens was born on March 10, 1915 near Spartanburg, South Carolina. He began to play the pump organ at the age of 5 and two years later he switched to piano. Slim was so small that his feet would not even reach the organ pedals, so he…
Tad Walters
Born in Canton, OH, raised in Raleigh, NC, Tad Walters began playing the guitar at age twelve. As he was developing his guitar skill, Tad picked up the harmonica a couple years later at fourteen. He was influenced by the likes of Blind Boy Fuller, Robert Lockwood, Charlie Patton, Robert…
Lightnin’ Wells
Mike “Lightnin’” Wells was raised in North Carolina and has had an interest in traditional forms of music since childhood. An avid collector of country and blues recordings, these formed the basis for his developing style of playing and singing using a variety of acoustic instruments, including the guitar, banjo,…
Whistlin’ Britches
Haskel Thompson was born in Winston-Salem, NC in 1932, and has lived there to this day. Captain Luke gave Haskel his nickname Whistlin’ Britches a year ago. He has an amazing spirit and exudes utter joy when he sings. He is the only fellow I have heard who can pop…
