Blues with a Feeling - The Official Podcast

This week on Blues With A Feeling, we’re coming home.

Our classic album feature shines a warm spotlight on John Lee Hooker’s 1995 masterpiece Chill Out — a late‑career triumph from the patron saint of this program. For thirty years, BWAF opened with his incredible song The Healer, and Hooker’s voice, groove and spirit have been the heartbeat of Monday nights ever since. Chill Out captures him in full command...

This week on Blues With A Feeling, we open the doors wide with two sets of brand‑new blues — a snapshot of where the music is right now, and a reminder that the blues is still evolving, still restless, still capable of surprise. GA‑20 team up with Charlie Musselwhite for a gritty, old‑meets‑new opener; Alvin Youngblood Hart brings that unmistakable road‑worn fire; Mike Finnigan gives us soul and swing in equal measure; and Am...

This week on Blues With A Feeling, we’re travelling right to the heart of the Delta — not in a nostalgic way, but in a living, breathing, spine‑tingling way. Two feature albums anchor the show, and together they tell one of the great stories in American music: the rediscovery of Son House and the return‑to‑roots of Muddy Waters, both unfolding in the same remarkable year.

We begin with Forever On My Mind, the newly rele...

This week’s show is a journey through the living, breathing continuum of the blues — from its earliest recorded ghosts to one of its most vital modern storytellers. We begin with a remarkable moment in music history: the sudden appearance online of what appears to be a previously unheard test pressing of Robert Johnson’s Cross Road Blues. This version, reportedly transferred from an original wax cutting, reveals a...

Joy is the first thing that walks into the room this week — bright, unhurried, and absolutely contagious. It’s in the new music, it’s in the stories, and it’s especially in the voice of Ruthie Foster, whose insights peppered throughout the show feel like little bursts of sunlight. Fresh from her 2025 Grammy win, she speaks with that unmistakable mix of humility, humour, and hard‑earned wisdom, and every time...

This week on Blues With A Feeling, we’re diving deep into the world of one of the great modern torchbearers of Texas blues guitar — Sue Foley. With Sue celebrating her birthday last week, and with her brand‑new book Guitar Woman: Conversations and Life Lessons with the Heroines of Guitar on the way in June, it felt like the perfect moment to revisit her remarkable story and her 2021 album Pinky’s Blues.

Sue...

There are albums that entertain, albums that impress, and then there are albums that feel like they open a door into a whole other world. Marcia Ball’s Let Me Play With Your Poodle is one of those rare records — a joyous, rolling, deeply human celebration of Gulf Coast blues delivered by an artist at the height of her powers. Released in 1997, at a time when the blues landscape was dominated by guitar‑slinging men, this...

“Black Magic is a marvellously atmospheric and easy record to listen to - with Sam's resonant and flexible vocals a perfect match for his clean virtuoso guitar playing. Moving on from the scorching Chicago blues captured so unforgettably on West Side Soul - here the accent is on a smooth sound with a potential wider appeal. Hit songs like I Just Want a Little Bit, You Belong to Me a...

On his fourth album in four years, Earl proves that he's robust enough to muscle through a set of swinging jazz (Jimmy Smith's "Blues for J"), sizzling gospel ("Walking on the Sea" with the Silver Leaf Gospel Singers), and explosive blues (everything else) with strapping aplomb. As opposed to his previous almost entirely instrumental disc, vocals are featured on about half of these tracks. Kim Wilson sings and plays electrifying ha...

This week on Blues With A Feeling, following the sad passing of John Hammond in February, I’m rolling the tape all the way back to 1962 — back to a moment when a young New Yorker with an old soul stepped into a studio and cut a debut album that felt less like a beginning and more like a declaration.

The record was simply called John Hammond, but don’t let the plain title fool you. This was a mission statement. A l...

Not many living blues musicians can say they have performed with and recorded for legends like Big Mama Thornton, Sonny Rhodes, Luther Tucker, Jimmy McCracklin, Pee Wee Crayton, Carla Thomas, Booker T. Jones, Percy Mayfield, Etta James, B.B. King, and Jimmy Reed.

Ron Thompson can, and that's just the beginning!

Ron Thompson was a legendary rhythm and blues guitarist and master keyboardist whose career began in the rough and tumble ...

Grammy Winners Showcase

For more than three decades, Blues With A Feeling has been your weekly home for stories, songs, and the artists who keep the blues alive. And this week, we’re taking a deep dive into the very best of the last six years — a special feature celebrating the winners of the Blues categories at the Grammy Awards from 2021 right through to 2026.

It’s a journey through a remarkable period in modern...

“Burke, who turns 65 this month, proves once again that his reengineered fusion of classic rock and soul is essential listening.

Produced by Don Was, and ably backed by such stalwart musicians as guitarist Ray Parker, Jr. (“Ghostbusters”), the ten songs on Make Do… draw once again from Burke’s deep list of admirers and famous friends. Van Morrison and Dr. John selected songs specifically for Burke, &l...

“Christone “Kingfish” Ingram stands at the crossroads of legacy and innovation. A native son of Clarksdale, Mississippi — a city steeped in blues history — he channels the spirit of the Delta while fearlessly reshaping its future. With Hard Road, his most introspective and ambitious project yet, Kingfish reflects on a journey that’s taken him from local prodigy to global torchbearer for a new era...

“Five-time GRAMMY-nominated guitarist and songwriter Kenny Wayne Shepherd returns to Australia for the first time since 2018 to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of his landmark debut Ledbetter Heights.

Shepherd’s fiery tone and emotive phrasing have cemented him as one of modern blues-rock’s leading voices. This anniversary tour showcases both the evolution and vitality of his craft, spanning hits like Blu...

Classic Album feature & Interview

After a much needed break over Christmas, I’m back for Blues With A Feelings 32nd year with an all time classic, Kim Wilsons first solo album and his debut for Antones Records Tigerman.

With a crack bunch of the hottest players on the scene, this record was a big part of my early Blues education and I’m thrilled to feature it this week.

And to add a little something for the pot, I&r...

“In the studio, Sam Cooke was a consummate pop crooner, whose delicate, caramelized voice charmed the reserved and mild. By the early sixties, his success and stature as a groundbreaking R&B crossover sensation loomed large in the music business.

But when Cooke stepped into Miami’s Harlem Square Club on the warm night of January 12, 1963, he let his hair down. He delivered a blistering 37-minute set that showcased h...

“It's been over 30 years since world-class musicians guitarist Little Charlie Baty and harmonicist/vocalist/songwriter Rick Estrin first teamed up and took hard Chicago blues, jump, Texas swing and jazz and mixed it with rockabilly, proto-rock'n'roll, jumping jive, bebop and Estrin's sharply original lyrics, creating a sound one critic described as "Charlie Christian playing in Little Walter's band....

"Billed as her most personal statement, this may well be Mavis Staples’ finest solo effort to date. In 2004, the powerhouse lead singer of the famed Staple Singers released the rootsy Have A Little Faith on Alligator. Here, producer/guitarist Ry Cooder places the reigning queen of gospel’s voice in an even more intimate setting, paring the instrumentation down to the bare essentials.

But it’s the repertoire t...