Blues Moments in Time...

February 14 is more than roses and romance—it’s a cornerstone date in blues history. In this episode of Blues Moments in Time, we trace how Frederick Douglass’s chosen birthday helped inspire Black History Month, creating the cultural space for the blues to be honored as serious art, and how the founding of the SCLC in 1957 pushed the music from acoustic Delta roots into the urgent, electric sound of soul and R&B.

We drop into Mamie Smith’s 1920 “Big Bang” recording session and Aretha Franklin’s 1967 take on “Respect,” where a blues-drenched performance turned a man’s plea into a woman’s demand for equality. Along the way, we spotlight West Side guitar firebrand Magic Sam, funk-blues sax master Maceo Parker, and Chitlin’ Circuit hero G.B. Coleman—voices that prove February 14 is a day when the blues speaks of identity, struggle, and triumph.

Hosted by: Kelvin Huggins

Presented by: The Blues Hotel Collective - your home for EVERYTHING BLUES.

Website: https://www.theblueshotel.com.au/

Keep the blues alive.

© 2026 The Blues Hotel Collective.

February 13 traces a century of change in the blues—from backroom deals to royalty checks, from quiet suffering to anthems of resistance. In this episode of Blues Moments in Time, we look at how the founding of ASCAP in 1914 laid the groundwork for blues songwriters to finally claim their intellectual property, and how the 1960 Nashville sit-ins helped push the music from “my baby left me” laments to soul-drenched protest songs.

We revisit key recording sessions by Lonnie Johnson and Earl “Fatha” Hines that bridged Delta roots with urban sophistication, and mark the births of King Floyd and Peter Tork, artists who smuggled blues feeling into funk and pop. Finally, we reflect on the deaths of Piedmont master Blind Boy Fuller and “outlaw” country legend Waylon Jennings, two figures whose lives bookend the journey from acoustic street corners to the electric roar of Chicago and beyond.

Hosted by: Kelvin Huggins

Presented by: The Blues Hotel Collective - your home for EVERYTHING BLUES.

Website: https://www.theblueshotel.com.au/

Keep the blues alive.

© 2026 The Blues Hotel Collective.

February 12 is a landmark date in blues history—a day where politics, culture, and legendary artists intersect. This episode explores how the founding of the NAACP protected early blues musicians on the road, why Abraham Lincoln’s birthday became a reminder of freedom still out of reach, and how Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue pushed the blue note into high society.

We spotlight the birthdays of Piedmont great Pink Anderson and Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek, and reflect on the passing of Delta master Ishmon Bracy and the theatrical trailblazer Screaming Jay Hawkins. Together, their stories show how February 12 captures the blues as a force that shaped America and influenced music worldwide.

Hosted by: Kelvin Huggins

Presented by: The Blues Hotel Collective - your home for EVERYTHING BLUES.

Website: https://www.theblueshotel.com.au/

Keep the blues alive.

© 2026 The Blues Hotel Collective.

February 11th traces a straight line from the first legal Black resistance in colonial America to Bessie Smith’s breakthrough and the streets of Memphis. We begin in 1644 New Amsterdam, where eleven enslaved Africans petitioned for—and won—their freedom, creating the “Land of the Blacks” and setting an early precedent for legal resistance inside a hostile system. Centuries later, in 1990, Nelson Mandela walks free after 27 years in prison, a living embodiment of the liberation themes long carried in spirituals, blues, and jazz.

We then move to Memphis, 1968. After sanitation workers Echol Cole and Robert Walker are killed in a faulty garbage truck, more than 700 of their coworkers gather on February 11 to vote to strike. Their “I Am a Man” signs transform a labor dispute into a demand for basic humanity and draw Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to the city—while the soul and blues of Stax Records become the movement’s soundtrack.

On the musical side, February 11, 1923, marks Bessie Smith’s first recording session for Columbia, cutting “Downhearted Blues” and selling nearly 800,000 copies. That single proves the blues is not just folk expression but a major commercial force, opening the door for artists to make a living telling hard truths on record.

We round out the date with the lives tied to it: Josh White, the Piedmont bluesman who turned his guitar into a weapon for justice; Otis Clay and Little Johnny Taylor, who helped carry the music from Delta grit into urban soul and R&B; Whitney Houston, whose church‑rooted voice stands on that same foundation; and Nashville session great Jerry Kennedy, who blurred the lines between country and R&B. February 11th emerges as a day where courts, picket lines, and recording studios all echo the same message: the blues is resistance set to music.

Hosted by: Kelvin Huggins

Presented by: The Blues Hotel Collective - your home for EVERYTHING BLUES.

Website: https://www.theblueshotel.com.au/

Keep the blues alive.

© 2026 The Blues Hotel Collective.

February 10th is a hinge date where the blues steps into the mainstream, the law catches up—partly—to the music’s demand for dignity, and key architects of the sound enter and exit the story. We start in 1964, when the U.S. House of Representatives passes the Civil Rights Act, the beginning of the end for the segregated touring map that kept B.B. King, Muddy Waters, and countless others confined to the Chitlin’ Circuit and the back doors of the venues they filled.

Then we jump to 1979, when The Blues Brothers’ version of “Soul Man” hits the Billboard Top 20. What began as a comedy act becomes a Trojan horse for Memphis and Chicago soul—smuggling Duck Dunn, Matt “Guitar” Murphy, Aretha Franklin, and John Lee Hooker into suburban living rooms and giving a second wind to veteran careers. It’s the moment the blues “went Hollywood and actually won,” proving it could survive—and thrive—inside modern mass media.

We trace the lives tied to this date: Dave Van Ronk, the “Mayor of MacDougal Street,” whose February 10, 2002 passing closes the chapter on the folk‑blues bridge that carried Delta songs into Greenwich Village and onto Bob Dylan’s setlists; and Steve Cropper, who dies on February 10, 2026— the Stax Records guitarist and co‑writer of “In the Midnight Hour” and “Soul Man,” leaving a poetic symmetry with that 1979 chart climb.

Along the way, we nod to the foundations: Chick Webb, born this day in 1905, whose hard‑swinging drums underpinned jump blues and early R&B; Larry Adler, born 1914, who proved the “pocket piano of the blues”—the harmonica—belonged on the world’s grandest stages; and Buddy Tate, the Texas tenor torchbearer whose 2001 passing marks another link in the chain gone. February 10th emerges as a day where law, charts, and individual genius all intersect to keep the blues alive, amplified, and undeniable.

Hosted by: Kelvin Huggins

Presented by: The Blues Hotel Collective - your home for EVERYTHING BLUES.

Website: https://www.theblueshotel.com.au/

Keep the blues alive.

© 2026 The Blues Hotel Collective.