DavesMusicDatabase.com is devoted to ranking, rating, and reviewing music of all genres and eras. The DMDB blog serves up album and song reviews, best-of lists, music history snapshots, and music-related essays.
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 | Blues Hall of Fame:1980-2025 |
As stated on the website, the Blues Hall of Fame “is a historical record of those who have made the Blues timeless through performance, documentation, and recording.” It was launched by the Blues Foundation in 1980. Inductee categories include performers, non-performers, songs, albums, and literature. See other Hall of Fames. The following performers and non-performers have been inducted.
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First posted 3/1/2017; last updated 5/7/2025. |
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| Blues Hall of Fame:Song Inductees, 1983-2023 |
The Blues Hall of Fame, operated by the Blues Foundation, officially opened its doors in Memphis, Tennessee in 2015. However, they started in 1980 honoring performers, non-performers, literature, albums, and “Classics of Blues Recording: Singles or Album Tracks.” This page lists those songs which have been inducted since the first year in 1983 through the present. Check other lists based on charts, sales, and airplay here. Year of Induction: Performer “Song” (year released) A
B
C
D-E
F-G
H-I
J
K-L
M-N
O-P
Q-R
S
T-U-V
W-X-Y-Z
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First posted 5/10/2023; last updated 9/11/2023. |
 | The Thrill Is GoneB.B. King |
Writer(s): Rick Darnell, Roy Hawkins (see lyrics here) First Charted: December 20, 1969 Peak: 15 BB, 15 CB, 14 GR, 13 HR, 3 RB, 2 CL, 2 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 225.54 video, 141.75 streaming |
Awards:Click on award for more details. 
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About the Song:Legendary blues singer and guitarist B.B. King was born Riley B. King on 9/16/1925 in Itta Beena, Mississippi. In 1946, he moved to Memphis where he learned guitar from Bukka White and Robert Lockwood, Jr. He first recorded for Bullet in 1949. He was nicknamed “The Beatle Street Blues Boy,” later shortened to “Blues Boy,” while working on a Memphis radio show from 1949 to 1950. RB “His strong, emotionally expressive tenor was a powerful weapon from the start.” SS “If he were nothing but a blues singer, B.B. King would still rank among the all-time greats. But of course, he is also among the most influential blues guitarists who ever lived.” SS From 1951 to 1992, King reached the R&B charts 76 times, including four chart-toppers early in his career. He managed over thirty entries on the Billboard Hot 100. “The Thrill Is Gone” came two decades into his career and while he had a half dozen more successful R&B chart entries, it was his most successful pop hit. “It became an across-the-board smash the likes of which blues hadn’t seen in years – and has not seen since.” SS Rock critic Dave Marsh speculated that it mibht be “the last great blues record.” DM “Its success boosted King to another level of the entertainment industry, as he soon became a familiar face on television and in concert halls around the world.” BH He was already the highest-earning blues artist in the country; now he was a living legend. SS “The Thrill Is Gone” actually dates back to 1951 when the original version was recorded by California bluesman Roy Hawkins. It was “a very good, slow blues ballad accompanied by piano and mournful saxophone; nice, but not one for the ages.” SS In King’s hands, however, it became “a modern blues epic.” SS “Produced and co-engineered with a contemporary edge by Bill Szymczyk (who later helped shape the sound of the Eagles), the session placed B.B. with a sympathetic crew of young New York studio musicians. The addition of tasteful strings enhanced rather than sugar-coated the song’s mood of sadness and loss.” BH Atop it all is King’s “magnificent growl of mingled rage and bereavement.” DM Resources:
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First posted 9/11/2023. |
Born Under a Bad Sign |
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Released: July 1967 Recorded: March 3, 1966 to June 9, 1967 Peak: -- Sales (in millions): 0.5 US Genre: blues |
Tracks:Song Title (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to charts.
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Rating: 3.812 out of 5.00 (average of 10 ratings)
Quotable:“One of the very greatest electric blues albums of all time” – Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music GuideAwards:(Click on award to learn more).
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About the Album:“Albert King recorded a lot in the early ‘60s, including some classic sides, but they never quite hit the mark. They never gained a large audience, nor did they really capture the ferocity of his single-string leads. Then he signed with Stax in 1966 and recorded a number of sessions with the house band, Booker T. & the MG’s, and everything just clicked.” STE They gave King “crossover appeal” WK with their “sleek, soulful sound,” WK “providing an excellent contrast to his tightly wound lead guitar, allowing to him to unleash a torrent of blistering guitar runs that were profoundly influential, not just in blues, but in rock & roll. STE Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, and Stevie Ray Vaughan have acknowledged how King influenced them. WK Born Under a Bad Sign collected singles released in 1966 and 1967 as well as additional studio cuts. WK “The concentration of singles gives the album a consistency – these were songs devised to get attention – but, years later, it’s astounding how strong this catalog of songs is: Born Under a Bad Sign, Crosscut Saw, Oh Pretty Woman, The Hunter, Personal Manager, and Laundromat Blues form the very foundation of Albert King’s musical identity and legacy.” STE “The songs are exceptional and the performances are rich, from King’s dynamic playing to the Southern funk of the MG’s. It was immediately influential at the time and, over the years, it has only grown in stature as one of the very greatest electric blues albums of all time.” STE “It was the great divide of modern blues, the point at which the music was rescued from slipping into derivative obscurity.” WK Notes:In 1998, Sundazed Records reissued the album with two additional bonus tracks, both written by Albert King. Those tracks are the rare mono single B-sides Funk-Shun and Overall Junction, which originally appeared on the Stax singles ‘Laundromat Blues’ and ‘Oh, Pretty Woman,’ respectively.” WK |
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First posted 11/13/2008; last updated 3/18/2024. |
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| Boom BoomJohn Lee Hooker |
Writer(s): John Lee Hooker (see lyrics here) First Charted: May 26, 1962 Peak: 60 BB, 70 HR, 16 RB, 19 CL, 16 UK, 1 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 41.8 video, 83.26 streaming |
Awards:Click on award for more details.
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About the Song:Blues great John Lee Hooker had his first recording session in 1948. “Boogie Chillen,” recorded during that session, was released the following year and topped the R&B chart on its way toward selling a million copies. However, it wasn’t until 1962’s “Boom Boom” that Hooker had his one and only entry on the pop charts. It would also be his final appearance on the R&B charts. In the 1980s and ‘90s, he would have success with albums with a host of guest rock stars. Hooker achieved his first hits recording on his own in Detroit, “playing guitar and stomping his feet.” BH However, on hs “bad-man theme, ‘Boom Boom,’” BH “the stomping rhythm” BH was provided by James Jamerson (bass), Benny Benjamin (drums), and Joe Hunter (piano). The trio were none other than the famed Motown session men known as the Funk Brothers. The song was inspired by Luilla, a bartender at the Apex Bar in Detroit where Hooker used to play. As he said, “I’d always be late and whenever I’d come in she’d point at me and say, ‘Boom Boom, you’re late again. And she kept saying that. It dawned on me that that was a good name for a song. Then one night she said, ‘Boom Boom, I’m gonna shoot you down.’ She gave me a song but she didn’t know it.” SF After he recorded the song and the Animals covered it, he said, “The barmaid felt pretty good. She went around telling everybody I got John Lee to write that song. I gave her some bread for it, too, so she was pretty happy.” SF Others to record the song included Big Head Todd & the Monsters, Buddy Guy, the Oak Ridge Boys, Them, Muddy Waters, and the Yardbirds. SH Hooker performed the song in the 1980 movie The Blues Brothers. It was his only movie appearance. Resources:Related Links:
First posted 9/11/2023. |
 | Smokestack LightningHowlin’ Wolf |
Writer(s): Chester Burnett (see lyrics here) First Charted: March 17, 1956 Peak: 8 RB, 42 UK, 4 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 36.90 video, 64.93 streaming |
Awards:Click on award for more details.
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About the Song:Howlin’ Wolf was a menancing presence – 6’ 3”, 300 pounds, and size 14 feet. He had “a ferocious vocal power” SS to match, making him “one of the reigning gods of postwar Chicago blues.” SS He was born Chester Arthur Burnett on June 10, 1910 in West Point, Mississippi. He learned to play guitar from legendary blues man Charley Patton. His maternal grandmother nicknamed him “Wolf” when he was a child, a moniker which his biographers said suited him perfectly. He was “a musician who roamed by himself: a lone wolf. His unusual blue-gray eyes, so like a wolf’s, seemed to glare right through people rather than at them.” SS He was also “a proverbial wolf with women” and “his lupine howl gave him the aura of some unsettled creature of the night.” SS Thanks to numerous childhood bouts with tonsilitis which damaged his vocal cords, his “voice sounded like he subsisted on a diet of broken glass…washed down…with kerosene.” SS Howlin’ Wolf was already 41 years when Sam Phillips heard him on a Memphis radio show and produced his double-sided debut single “How Many More Years” and “Moanin’ at Midnight” in 1951. Phillips leased the tracks to Chess Records and soon Howlin’ Wolf was working out of Chicago. That same year he recorded “Crying at Daybreak,” an early version of “Smokestack Lightning.” SS It was a song he’d been performing since the early 1930s. It was partially inspired by Charley Patton’s “Moon Going Down,” which used the phrase “smoke light lightning” in reference to a river boat. SS The song may owes a debt to “Stop and Listen Blues,” a 1930 song by the Mississippi Sheiks that included the line “crying, smokestack black baby; the bells it shine like gold.” SS Howlin’ Wolf employed a similar line – “The smokestack is black and the bell, it shines like gold” – in “Smokestack Lightning.” In 1954, Howlin’ Wolf re-recorded “Crying at Daybreak” as “Smokestack Lightning.” “While the band stayed on the same chord throughout the song, the tension never relented on this arresting performance from Wolf, Willie Johnson and company.” BH Wolf’s recording featured the famed Willie Dixon Chess session player on bass. Still, it would be two more years before it was released as a single. Then “the Wolf’s quintessential howling cry rode a hypnotic pounding beat all the way to the Top Ten of Billboard’s rhythm & blues charts.” BH Lightning struck twice as eight years later, Howlin’ Wolf found himself on the UK charts at#42 with the song. Resources:
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First posted 9/10/2023. |
