Friday Night Music--Blues Edition

If the Blues "ain't nothing but a good man feeling bad" than here's to hoping the greats featured here--at least the ones who remain among the living--have a bad day here and there.

I start with the man who revived the Blues in the eighties and early nineties, Washington State's own Robert Cray. Here's Right Next Door from his breakthrough album Strong Persuader:



Here's an excellent live version as well.

Next we have a man who died too young. Stevie Ray Vaughn doing the immortal Little Wing and a bit of Third Stone From the Sun live. He was the successor to Jimi Hendrix. He died after performing with the aforementioned Robert Cray and Eric Clapton on a field in Wisconsin from a helicopter crash:



Next we the man himself Jimi playing Hey Joe at the Atlanta Pop Festival in 1970. If I could go back in time, I'd see Jimi play just once. He blows my mind in the post Metal/Grunge period, what must he have sounded like to a generation that was into Love Me Do and Sgt. Pepper's? The mind reels:



Next we have the originator of The Blues, Robert Johnson doing a song that Eric Clapton resurrected. The story is that Johnson sold his sold to the devil in exchange for fame and went to the crossroads to beg for his soul back.



Here's Clapton's version with Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker together as Cream.

Finally the song that may have been covered by more bands than any other, Little Red Rooster. This is from the Dead and Bobby always got the crowd worked up when we heard the slide. The Philly Spectrum during the spring tour in 1986: