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Bessie Smith, carrying more than weight on her famous shoulders
Song of the Day: After a series of early bluesmen, it's time to sprinkle some attention on the first true star of of the blues crossing into jazz, who not only mixed a little dirt into her powerful voice, but also into her lyrics
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Blind Willie McTell (1898-1959)
Song of the Day: Today's deep-south exploration goes to the Piedmont blues style of the man born in Thomson, Georgia, whose ragtime-like picking style and voice is so clearly a huge influence on Bob Dylan, Jack White and Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page and Robert Plant
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Mississippi John Hurt (1992-1966)
Song of the Day: Pictured with Skip James on yesterday's Skip James post, his friend and contemporary Hurt was a blues country singer-songwriter known for his distinctively intricate fingerpicking style
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Canned Heat
Song of the Day: Leaping back out of Springsteen's Pink Cadillac, we continue our road journey with two 1968 hits by the Los Angeles blues band – a cover of a cover a cover – and also go back down the dusty track to see where it all came from
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