David Whiteis

WHAT'S INSIDE: I’m a Blues Singer. That’s What I Do. By David Whiteis Detroit’s Queen of the Blues, Thornetta Davis, has been honing her craft for nearly 40 years, though she struggles to gain acceptance on festival stages in the United States. Despite her shows bringing rave reviews, wider fame has been elusive. Davis opens up to us about her life in the blues. If Red Beans and Rice Could Sing, They’d Sound Like Erica Falls By Robert H.

WHAT'S INSIDE: Lead with Love By David Whiteis Son of blues star Lonnie Brooks, Ronnie Baker Brooks carries on the family legacy of powerful blues with deep, traditional roots. On the heels of his debut release on Alligator Records, the label that helped cement his dad’s career, Ronnie sits down and reflects on his life in the blues. Soulkeeper By Peter Hurley First-rate Chicago vocalist Gerald McClendon calls himself a soulkeeper.

Dinah Washington was one of the premier vocal stylists in American popular music from the 1940s through the early ’60s. She came of age as the music industry was beginning to loosen its arbitrary assumptions about genre and audience (in 1949, Billboard started calling its “race records” chart its R&B chart), and her wide stylistic range took every advantage of that development. Washington could sing elegant jazz, 12-bar blues both bawdy and bereft, proto–rock ’n’ roll romps, and lush ballads.