June 2009

SheikJust recording 70 sides over a career won’t necessarily guarantee a performer the ability to be recalled a few decades on. If one of those tracks, though, is “Sittin’ on Top of the World,” you’d get your deference. The Mississippi Sheiks, who penned and recorded that track in the ‘30s, were one of the early familial dynasties in recorded music. Using the moniker Carter, but actually being named Chatmon, the family’s figurehead, Ezell, was the uncle of Charlie Patton and was a popular performer during the waning days of slavery. His sons, any combination of Lonnie, Bo and Sam along with Walter Vinson, comprised the shifting line up of the Mississippi Sheiks. Read more

Just for YouUnfortunately, turned into a footnote, Lee Hazlewood impacted the rock medium more than most would be able to figure. Although his most commercially successful works would come behind the boards as a producer or engineer, the music that Hazlewood had a hand in, regardless of what he was doing, fused together disparate elements of rock and country that could arguably be considered the foundation of country rock. Read more