Blues Moments in Time...

January 31 is more than a date on the calendar—it’s a crossroads of faith, struggle, and sound. In this episode, we stand in Chicago in 1972 at the funeral of Mahalia Jackson, where over 40,000 mourners gathered and Aretha Franklin’s closing song turned grief into a living testament to gospel, blues, and the Civil Rights Movement. We explore how Mahalia’s voice became both a spiritual anchor and a political force, from the March on Washington to national recognition from the White House.

From there, we trace how the emotional DNA of the blues flows into global pop: The Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back” topping the charts in 1970, Blondie’s “The Tide Is High” riding rhythms born from Black musical traditions, and rock innovators like Terry Kath and Phil Manzanera carrying Mississippi’s echoes into new sonic territories.

We close with the haunting legacy of Slim Harpo, the “swamp blues” master whose hypnotic grooves powered the Rolling Stones and modern blues rock. January 31 becomes a story of farewells and ripples—of how gospel, blues, and soul keep reshaping culture, politics, and the way the world feels its music.

Hosted by: Kelvin Huggins

Presented by: The Blues Hotel Collective

Keep the blues alive.

© 2026 The Blues Hotel Collective.

January 30 isn’t packed with famous blues birthdays or deaths—but that’s exactly what makes it powerful. In this episode, we trace how one ordinary date became a lens on the entire evolution of the blues. From Charlie Patton’s raw Delta masterpiece “Jersey Bull Blues” in 1934 to Sonny Boy Williamson II’s electric Chicago session with an all-star band in 1960, we follow the music’s journey from dusty backroads to neon-lit city nights.

We then step onto the London rooftop in 1969 for The Beatles’ final performance and explore how British rock giants carried the blues back to the world, amplifying its roots for new generations. Alongside these musical milestones, we confront the darker shadows of January 30—the rise of Hitler, the assassination of Gandhi—and ask how global turmoil seeps into the blues’ sound, spirit, and stories.

This episode is a meditation on legacy, resilience, and the countless unnamed artists whose lived experiences shaped the music we still feel today—proof that the blues is less about dates on a calendar and more about an unbroken, echoing human heartbeat.

Hosted by: Kelvin Huggins

Presented by: The Blues Hotel Collective

Keep the blues alive.

© 2026 The Blues Hotel Collective.

In this episode of Blues Moments in Time, we trace January 29 as a fault line where law and music collide. We start in the 19th century, with Henry Clay’s Compromise of 1850 and Mississippi’s short-lived 1873 civil rights bill—moments that built the legal scaffolding of slavery, sharecropping, and Jim Crow. These aren’t just dates in a textbook; they’re the backdrop to every blues lyric about a “mean old world” and a “high sheriff” who never played fair.

From there, we move to January 29, 1992, and the passing of Willie Dixon—the bassist, songwriter, and producer whose work at Chess Records became the blueprint for modern blues, rock, and soul, and whose legal battles helped secure artists’ rights. Finally, we meet Jonny Lang, born January 29, 1981, a teenage prodigy who carried that legacy into the age of MTV and streaming. Together, these stories reveal January 29 as a day where courtrooms, state houses, and recording studios all feed the same river: the blues as a lifelong argument for dignity, justice, and emotional truth.

Hosted by: Kelvin Huggins

Presented by: The Blues Hotel Collective

Keep the blues alive.

© 2026 The Blues Hotel Collective.

In this episode of Blues Moments in Time, we stop the clock on January 28—a single date that captures the blues as a living, breathing continuum. We move from the elegant Piedmont finger-picking of Luke Jordan, born January 28, 1892, to the community-rooted legacy of DC Minner, born January 28, 1935 in an all-Black Oklahoma town, and finally to the passing of Alabama harmonica original J-Bird Coleman on January 28, 1950.

Set against the tense political backdrop of McCarthyism, early Civil Rights organizing, and the rise of television, we drop into 1950 as Sam Phillips opens his Memphis studio and Muddy Waters and Little Walter refine the amplified Chicago sound at Chess Records. This episode traces how one date threads together front-porch Piedmont blues, smoke-filled Chicago clubs, and schoolroom blues education—showing that the music is never frozen in time. It’s a torch, passed from hand to hand, generation to generation.

Hosted by: Kelvin Huggins

Presented by: The Blues Hotel Collective

Keep the blues alive.

© 2026 The Blues Hotel Collective.

In this episode of Blues Moments in Time, January 27 becomes a day where history’s heaviest shadows and music’s brightest sparks sit side by side. We begin with International Holocaust Remembrance Day and the liberation of Auschwitz in 1945, drawing a line between that global reckoning with atrocity and the blues as a vessel for suffering, survival, and the demand to be seen as fully human. The same emotional current that runs through memorial candles and testimonies runs through 12‑bar laments and soul‑deep shouts.

We then flip the switch—literally—to 1880, when Thomas Edison’s light bulb patent helped create the modern night: clubs, bars, theaters, and, eventually, recording studios where blues musicians could plug in, turn up, and be documented. Electric light didn’t just change how we see; it changed where and when the blues could be played, recorded, and remembered.

January 27 is also a birthday roll call for two giants: Elmore James, born in 1918, whose slide guitar could cut straight through the soul and whose riffs would echo in the work of players like Jimi Hendrix and B.B. King; and Bobby “Blue” Bland, born in 1930, whose smooth, gospel‑infused vocals helped shape modern soul blues and left a catalog singers still study like scripture.

Around them, the date traces the blues’ cross‑genre fingerprints: Elvis Presley releasing “Heartbreak Hotel” in 1956, a rock and roll milestone built on blues structure and emotion; the 2014 passing of Pete Seeger, who carried songs like “Goodnight Irene” from Lead Belly’s world into the American mainstream and tied folk, blues, and activism together; and the Punch Brothers’ The Phosphorescent Blues in 2015, a roots‑steeped acoustic record that shows how the genre’s DNA keeps resurfacing in new forms.

January 27 stands as a microcosm of the blues itself—birth and loss, darkness and illumination, slide guitars and protest songs—reminding us that this music is a universal language of resilience, forever carrying history’s weight and still finding new ways to shine.

Hosted by: Kelvin Huggins

Presented by: The Blues Hotel Collective

Keep the blues alive.

© 2026 The Blues Hotel Collective.