The Blues Foundation
R&B and blues singer Esther Phillips is among the 2023 inductees into The Blues Foundation’s Blues Hall of Fame. Phillips had two top 20 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 — “Release Me” (1962, when she was known as “Little Esther” Phillips) and a remake of Dinah Washington’s “What a Diff’rence a Day Makes” (1975). Phillips didn’t live to see her induction. She died in 1984 at age 48.
Josh White, who went from being a Piedmont blues artist to an important voice in the folk music world of the 1940s, was also inducted. White, who died in 1969 at age 55, received the Folk Alliance International’s 2023 lifetime achievement award for a legacy (deceased) artist on Feb. 1 in Kansas City, Mo. Leyla McCalla and Josh White Jr. performed in tribute to White at that event. McCalla performed “I Gave My Love a Cherry (The Riddle Song).” White Jr. sang “One Meatball.”
This year’s other Blues Hall of Fame honorees include four Chicago bluesmen (Carey Bell, John Primer, Snooky Pryor and Fenton Robinson) and a Mississippi juke joint king (Junior Kimbrough).
Of the seven artists being inducted this year, four (Bell, Phillips, Primer and Robinson) had been nominated for Grammy awards, but none had won (which suggests the need for these specialized awards). Phillips was a four-time nominee for best R&B vocal performance, female. She lost three times to Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin.
Of the seven artists, only Primer is still living. He is 78.
Since its inception in 1980, The Blues Foundation has inducted more than 400 industry professionals, recordings, and works of literature into the Blues Hall of Fame. Members are inducted in five categories: performers, individuals, classic of blues literature, classic of blues recording (song), and classic of blues recording (album).
David Evans, who won the award for individuals, is a two-time Grammy winner for best album notes. He won for Voices of Mississippi: Artists and Musicians Documented By William Ferris and Screamin’ and Hollerin’ the Blues – The Worlds of Charley Patton.
One of the five recordings being honored has been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. That’s Son House’s 1930 recording “My Black Mama,” which was voted into the Grammy HOF in 2013.
Little Walter: The Complete Chess Masters is 2023’s classic blues recording: album. Hip-O’s five-CD, 126-track compilation was released in 2009.
Entering the Blues Hall of Fame as a classic of blues literature is The Original Blues: The Emergence of the Blues in African American Vaudeville 1899-1926. The book, by Lynn Abbott and Doug Seroff, chronicles the minstrel and ragtime traditions in vaudeville theatre that was major public venue for blues in its early years.
The Blues Hall of Fame induction ceremony, held in conjunction with the Blues Music Awards, will take place on Wednesday, May 10, at the Halloran Centre in Memphis. A cocktail reception honoring the BHOF inductees and Blues Music Awards nominees will begin at 5:30 p.m., with the inductions commencing at 6:30 p.m. Tickets, including the ceremony and reception, are $75 each and available with Blues Music Awards tickets.
The Blues Hall of Fame Museum in Memphis will showcase several items representing the 2023 class of inductees. These artifacts will be on display for public viewing beginning the first week of May and will remain on view for the next 12 months.
Here’s a full list of The Blues Foundation’s 2023 Blues Hall of Fame inductees.
Performers
Carey Bell
Junior Kimbrough
Esther Phillips
John Primer
Snooky Pryor
Fenton Robinson
Josh White
Individuals – Business, Production, Media, Academic
David Evans
Classic of Blues Literature
The Original Blues: The Emergence of the Blues in African American Vaudeville 1899-1926 by Lynn Abbott & Doug Seroff (University Press of Mississippi, 2017)
Classic of Blues Recording – Album
Little Walter: The Complete Chess Masters (1950-1967) (Hip-O Select, 2009)
Classics of Blues Recording – Single or Album Track
“Black Nights” — Lowell Fulson (Kent, 1965)
“I’m Tore Down” — Freddy King (Federal, 1961)
“Mojo Hand” — Lightnin’ Hopkins (Fire, 1960)
“My Black Mama” — Son House (Paramount, 1930)
“The Red Rooster (Little Red Rooster)” — Howlin’ Wolf (Chess, 1961)
The Blues Foundation’s 2023 “Keeping the Blues Alive Award” honorees are notably international in scope. The eight individuals and organizations set to be honored hail from such far-flung blues outposts as Denmark, Poland and Colombia.
This year’s honorees will be recognized for their achievements at the Keeping the Blues Alive Awards brunch, taking place Jan. 27, 2023, at 10:30 a.m. CT in the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel in Memphis.
The ceremony represents just one part of the Blues Foundation’s 38th annual International Blues Challenge. The IBC Week kicks off Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2023, with International Showcase performances on historic Beale Street, and concludes with the finals at Memphis’ Orpheum Theatre on Jan. 28 at noon CT.
The Blues Foundation has also programmed a variety of seminars, showcases, master classes, film screenings, book signings, exhibits, networking events and receptions.
To purchase an International Blues Challenge Pass and final seating upgrades, along with tickets to the Keeping the Blues Alive Awards brunch and ceremony, visit this link: IBC & KBA TICKETS.
For more information about the International Blues Challenge, including the full schedule of events, IBC merchandise and links to reserve discounted hotel rooms at The DoubleTree Hotel, visit Blues.org.
Recipients of the 2023 Keeping the Blues Alive Awards are:
The Little Village Foundation
The Little Village Foundation, formed as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in 2015 by Grammy-winning keyboardist Jim Pugh, focuses on seeking out, recording, and promoting artists whose music has not yet been discovered outside of their communities. Among the 51 recordings released by Little Village, the majority are blues related. CDs nominated for recent Blues Music Awards include albums by Tia Carroll, Memphissippi Sounds and Sonny Green.
John Guregian
For more than 40 years, John Guregian has been spinning the blues on his radio show, “Blues Deluxe,” hosted on WUML-FM in Lowell, Mass. Starting in 1979, when Guregian was still a student, the show aired for four hours on Saturdays. This led to a stint as blues director for the station, along with subsequent work emceeing many blues festivals and club shows. “Blues Deluxe,” which is now on the air every Saturday from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. at www.wuml.org.
Marilyn Stringer
Marilyn Stringer is among the most prolific photographers currently documenting the blues. She began covering the blues in earnest in 2006 and has since become the head photographer for some of the top blues festivals in the U.S. Stringer has also published three books in her Blues in the 21st Century series. She recently started her fourth book, Blues Souls, which will feature black-and-white photos of renowned blues performers.
The Sierre Blues Festival
In 1995, Swiss native Silvio Caldelari established the Blues Bar music club in Sierre, Switzerland. Fourteen years later, Caldelari and a group of volunteers founded the Swiss Blues Society. After affiliating their new organization with The Blues Foundation, Caldelari’s group decided to launch the first-ever Sierre Blues Festival. Since that inaugural event, the three-day festival has grown in popularity. Caldelari has continued to work with European blues leaders to nurture the European Blues Union and its partnership with The Blues Foundation.
Franky Bruneel
In 1982, at age 15, Franky Bruneel started his blues radio show, “Back to the Roots.” His show ran on several local and national radio stations throughout Belgium, his native country. In 1991, Bruneel began organizing blues concerts and created a link that brought American artists to Europe for short tours. In 1995, Bruneel created a modest fanzine named after his old radio show. Back to the Roots is now one of the most important blues magazines in Europe.
Ron Wynn
Blues journalist Ron Wynn began his career in the 1980s as the chief music critic for the Memphis Commercial-Appeal. He currently writes for the Nashville Scene, the Tennessee Tribune, the Tennessee Jazz and Blues Society, and Jazz Times, among other publications and websites. Wynn’s liner notes for From Where I Stand—The Black Experience in Country Music received a Grammy nomination in 1998. Wynn has contributed to three books, including Ain’t But a Few of Us: Black Music Writers Tell Their Story, slated for publication in December.
Blue Front Cafe
Located on Highway 49 in Bentonia, Miss., the Blue Front Café has been the home of the Bentonia School blues tradition since 1948, when Jimmy “Duck” Holmes’ family opened the café. The café is still open daily and presents live blues performances every weekend. As the headquarters of the Bentonia Blues Festival, which Holmes started in 1972, the Café has become a beacon for blues fans. A series of videos shot at the Café for The Black Keys’ Mississippi hill country-inspired album, Delta Kream, put even more focus on the Blue Front as a musical mecca.
Teddy’s Juke Joint
Teddy’s Juke Joint, owned by Lloyd “Teddy” Johnston, sits at the end of a dirt road off Highway 61—one of the last remaining juke joints on the Chitlin’ Circuit. Johnston was born in this shotgun shack in the woods north of Baton Rouge. After touring the country in the ’50s and ’60s as a DJ, he returned to Zachary, La. in the early ’70s to expand his childhood home into a bar. He allowed gospel groups to practice in the building, and when they began to form blues bands of their own and needed a place to perform, Teddy’s Bar & Lounge became Teddy’s Juke Joint.
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