Blues Moments in Time...

In this episode of Blues Moments in Time, January 20 stands as one of the most powerful dual anniversaries on the blues calendar — the birth of Lead Belly in 1888 and the passing of Etta James in 2012. Together, they form a kind of hinge in American music history: one artist who turned the struggles of his era into a living cultural record, and another whose voice carried that emotional truth into the modern age with unmatched force.

We begin with Lead Belly, the Louisiana-born giant whose 12‑string guitar and booming voice made him more than a musician — he became a chronicler of America itself. His songs captured presidents, movie stars, prison walls, labor fights, and the everyday hopes of ordinary people. He sang about the Scottsboro boys, about injustice, about the South he came from, and about the world he saw changing around him. January 20 becomes a reminder that the blues has always been political, always been a voice for the voiceless, always been a record of the country’s heartbeat.

Then we turn to Etta James, whose death on this date in 2012 marked the end of one of the most emotionally fearless careers in American music. Her voice — raw, volcanic, tender, and unguarded — could shake the walls of any room. She moved effortlessly between blues, soul, and R&B, carrying the genre’s emotional vocabulary into new spaces and new generations. Her performances didn’t just tell stories; they broke your heart and stitched it back together in the same breath.

January 20 reminds us that the blues is both archive and emotion — a record of struggle and a vessel for truth. Through Lead Belly’s storytelling and Etta James’ soul-deep delivery, the date captures the full sweep of what the blues has always been: history you can feel, memory you can hear, and a living testament to the American experience.

Hosted by: Kelvin Huggins

Presented by: The Blues Hotel Collective

Keep the blues alive.

© 2025 The Blues Hotel Collective.

In this episode of Blues Moments in Time, January 19 becomes a crossroads where literature, politics, and raw musical power all collide. We begin with Edgar Allan Poe, whose birthday sets the emotional tone for the day. His “American gloom,” haunted corners, and aching sense of longing form a surprising but unmistakable emotional blueprint for the blues — the same shadows that singers later turned into moans, hollers, and truth-telling verses.

From there, the date widens into political history. Indira Gandhi’s rise as India’s first female prime minister and Betty Ford’s bold push for equality both signal a global shift toward representation — the kind of cultural opening that helped women step into the spotlight of blues, soul, and roots music with greater force and visibility. January 19 becomes a reminder that political courage and artistic courage often move in tandem.

Musically, the day stretches from the operatic fire of Verdi’s Il trovatore — whose long, lived‑in phrases seeped into American vocal traditions — to the 1994 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductions of The Animals, The Band, and Duane Eddy, all artists who built their sound on the bones of the blues. And it’s a birthday roll call of emotional heavyweights: Janis Joplin, whose voice hit like a storm front; Dolly Parton, whose songwriting carries the same struggle and soul as Delta storytellers; and Poe himself, the literary ancestor of every blues singer who ever turned pain into poetry.

We also honor the losses of Carl Perkins, the rockabilly architect whose swagger came straight from blues phrasing, and Wilson Pickett, the “Wicked” soul shouter whose gospel‑charged fire still echoes across R&B.

January 19 shows how the blues is never just a genre — it’s a long, intertwined history of struggle, storytelling, and emotional truth, stretching from Gothic literature to juke joints, from cabinet rooms to concert halls, always shaping the sound of modern music.

Hosted by: Kelvin Huggins

Presented by: The Blues Hotel Collective

Keep the blues alive.

© 2026 The Blues Hotel Collective.

In this episode of Blues Moments in Time, January 18 isn’t about one famous record—it’s about the rooms, rituals, and lives that keep the blues breathing. We drop into Sunday night residencies in Los Angeles and small, snowbound rooms at the Thredbo Blues Festival, where two-hour sets and close-up stages turn ordinary evenings into living laboratories of the blues. Here, standards get bent back toward the 12‑bar truth, and the music exists as it always has: in the air between player and listener, undocumented but unforgettable.

We trace how, when January 18 falls on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the blues takes on an extra charge—used by teachers, preachers, and activists to connect field hollers to freedom songs, turning the 12‑bar form into testimony rather than nostalgia. The date becomes a hinge between the Delta’s private pain and the public push for civil rights, reminding us that the blues is not just entertainment, but evidence of how Black Americans turned suffering into sound.

January 18 also marks the births of Motown great David Ruffin and jazz drummer Al Foster, artists who carried the emotional vocabulary of the blues into soul hooks and behind-the-beat jazz grooves. And we sit with the losses of Harlem Renaissance trailblazer Gladys Bentley—tuxedoed, barrelhouse, and defiantly queer at the piano—and Eagles co-founder Glenn Frey, whose songs rode on blues changes and drifter stories all the way to the arenas.

Taken together, January 18 is a portrait of the blues as it really lives: in bar gigs and jam sessions that never make the textbooks, in voices and beats that don’t always call themselves “blues” but feel like it anyway, and in the quiet, consistent work of turning hard history into sound.

Hosted by: Kelvin Huggins

Presented by: The Blues Hotel Collective

Keep the blues alive.

© 2026 The Blues Hotel Collective.

In this episode of Blues Moments in Time, January 17 becomes a date where the blues steps out of tents, into studios, and across oceans. We start in 1929 New York City with Clara Smith cutting “Empty House Blues” and “Tell Me When,” capturing the moment when classic blues singers moved from Southern tent shows to Northern recording rooms—turning a regional oral tradition into a commercial force that would reshape American music.

From there, we trace the constant dialogue between blues, jazz, and rock: Charlie Watts tipping his hat to Charlie Parker in 1969, and The Doors’ 1970 Felt Forum performances, steeped in blues phrasing and later immortalized on Absolutely Live. January 17 also marks the birth of Mick Taylor, whose fluid guitar work with John Mayall and the Rolling Stones helped bridge American blues to a global audience, alongside artists like Jeff Berlin and Steve Earle, who carry its DNA into fusion and singer‑songwriter traditions.

Threaded through it all is the political and cultural backdrop—the long arc from segregation to civil rights—that shaped where and how this music could be played. January 17 reminds us that the blues is built on memory: of singers in cramped studios, drummers writing tributes, rock bands channeling old grooves, and communities that refused to let these sounds fade.

Hosted by: Kelvin Huggins

Presented by: The Blues Hotel Collective

Keep the blues alive.

© 2026 The Blues Hotel Collective.

January 16 is one of those dates where the blues doesn’t just show up in a single moment — it threads itself through a century of American culture, from hidden speakeasies to televised acoustic stages. We start in 1919 with the ratification of Prohibition, a law meant to “clean up” America that instead created the speakeasy underground — the backroom bars and after‑hours joints where Black musicians found new stages, new audiences, and a new urban electricity. These were the rooms where the blues became the soundtrack to defiance, thriving in spaces that were illegal, glamorous, and essential to the Great Migration’s cultural explosion.

From there, we drop the needle on two landmark January 16 recording sessions, exactly sixty years apart. In 1932, Duke Ellington records “It Don’t Mean a Thing”, crystallizing swing with bent notes, call‑and‑response, and the rhythmic feel of the blues hiding in plain sight. Then in 1992, Eric Clapton sits down for his MTV Unplugged session — a global broadcast that reintroduced acoustic blues to millions and became the bestselling live album of all time.

January 16 is also a birthday roll call for artists who expanded what the blues could be. Robert Wilkins, the Memphis country‑blues guitarist whose songs fueled the folk revival. Barbara Lynn, the left‑handed Texas trailblazer who wrote and played her own R&B hits, breaking gender and racial barriers with every chord. And Sade, whose soul‑jazz elegance carries the emotional vocabulary of the blues into modern Black music.

Taken together, January 16 becomes a long conversation across time — from Memphis street corners to Prohibition backrooms, from swing‑era studios to global acoustic stages. It’s a reminder that the blues adapts, survives, and keeps finding new rooms to fill.

Hosted by: Kelvin Huggins

Presented by: The Blues Hotel Collective

Keep the blues alive.

© 2026 The Blues Hotel Collective.