Blues (Music)

The singer describes skiffle as "a bunch of British school boys in the mid '50s playing Lead Belly's repertoire ... on acoustic guitars." Originally broadcast July 19, 2017.

British singer and songwriter Billie Brag brings his guitar to the studio to play and sing some songs and talks about the Skiffle movement, the British adaptation of American blues and folk music that became popular in the 1950s and influenced the Beatles, Pete Townsend, Van Morrison and other British rockers.

During a 2000 visit to the Fresh Air studios, the former teen idol performed old songs, new songs and songs by blues and country performers who influenced him.

He's been awarded the 2005 Pianist of the Year award by the Jazz Journalist's Association, and he also received the first ever 2005 Playboy Magazine Jazz Artist of the Year. His new album is called Same Mother, which reflects the 30-year-old musician's current interest in the blues.

In the 1970s guitarist Bill Frisell was a student of jazz composer and arranger Michael Gibbs at Boston's Berklee College of Music. This is the album some Frisell fans have been wishing for.

Charters helped ignite the blues revival of the '50s and '60s. He made field recordings of forgotten and previously undiscovered performers. He also wrote two books. He died Wednesday; he was 85.

In the mid-1920s, Paramount Records was the leading blues label in America. The second box set featuring this music was released in late 2014.

Between 1917 and 1932, the label released thousands of records. Jack White's Third Man Records has joined with the reissue label Revenant to release the first of two packages documenting Paramount.

Dave and Phil Alvin have made their first full album together in nearly 30 years, a tribute to one of their early influences. "His persona was so big to me," Phil Alvin tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross.

The poet describes his new book — about the death of his father and the birth of his son — as having a blues sensibility. "There are moments of humor even in the sorrow," he says.