February 9th marks a turning point where the blues loops back into American culture, fuels political change, and evolves from rural porch music into an urban force. In 1964, 73 million viewers watched the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show, unknowingly witnessing the “re‑importation” of the blues as British bands sent American teenagers searching for Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, and the Chicago masters who shaped them.

The date also sits at the heart of the Civil Rights era: in 1965, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. met with President Lyndon Johnson to strategize the Voting Rights Act, giving political voice to the dignity long expressed in Delta blues. But February 9 also recalls darker moments—like Senator McCarthy’s 1950 Red Scare speech, which blacklisted folk‑blues artists who dared to speak out.

Musically, the day captures key transitions: Big Bill Broonzy’s 1932 recordings bridging country blues and city grit, and Elvis Presley’s 1957 chart‑topping momentum signaling the shift from pop‑blues to raw rock and roll.

We also mark the births of bassist Walter Page, inventor of the walking bassline, and Chicago soul star Major Lance, alongside the passings of Bentonia bluesman Jack Owens and the velvet‑voiced Tyrone Davis.

February 9th stands as a snapshot of the blues in motion—crossing oceans, shaping politics, and carrying the music from front porches to city streets and global stages.

Hosted by: Kelvin Huggins

Presented by: The Blues Hotel Collective - your home for EVERYTHING BLUES.

Website: https://www.theblueshotel.com.au/

Keep the blues alive.

© 2026 The Blues Hotel Collective.

February 8th traces the blues from survival code to social justice soundtrack and global rock foundation. We start in 1915 with the premiere of The Birth of a Nation, a racist propaganda film that pushed Black communities into constant vigilance and turned early Delta blues into coded music of survival—songs that said one thing on the surface and another underneath.

We then move to 1968 and the Orangeburg massacre in South Carolina, when police killed three students protesting a segregated bowling alley. In the wake of that tragedy, the blues grew a sharper edge, shifting from juke‑joint escape to “justice joint” advocacy and paving the way for soul blues artists to speak truth to power.

Along the way, February 8th spotlights key musical figures and turning points: the 1899 birth of Lonnie Johnson, who turned the guitar into a true lead voice with single‑note solos; Eddie “Guitar” Burns, who carried Mississippi mud to Detroit’s Motor City; and the 1956 hit “See You Later Alligator,” a Bobby Charles blues tune that became a Bill Haley rock and roll smash—an example of how Black architects built the house while others got their names on the deed.

We close with Marvin Sease, who died on February 8, 2011—a Chitlin’ Circuit giant whose raw, funny, and scandalous shows kept Southern blues alive long after mainstream radio moved on. February 8th stands as a reminder that the blues is resilience in motion: coded, borrowed, electrified, and always rooted in the full, messy human experience.

Hosted by: Kelvin Huggins

Presented by: The Blues Hotel Collective - your home for EVERYTHING BLUES.

Website: https://www.theblueshotel.com.au/

Keep the blues alive.

© 2026 The Blues Hotel Collective.

February 7th marks the moment the blues stepped into the historical spotlight, the global stage, and the electric future. In 1926, Dr. Carter G. Woodson launched Negro History Week, creating the first national space where the stories behind the blues could be recognized as essential American history.

Fast‑forward to 1964: the Beatles land at JFK, openly praising Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf, forcing a segregated America to confront—and finally value—its own blues heritage.

The date also captures key musical turning points: Johnny Dodds’ 1929 Chicago recordings shifting from New Orleans improvisation to the hard, driving pulse of Chicago blues, and Little Richard’s 1956 “Long Tall Sally,” where pure R&B plugged straight into rock and roll.

We celebrate the 1934 births of Earl King and King Curtis—regional giants who shaped New Orleans R&B and Texas tenor sax—and remember the 1959 passing of Guitar Slim, the flamboyant, distortion‑driven pioneer who redefined what a blues guitar hero could be.

February 7th stands as a crossroads where history, fandom, and raw sonic power pushed the blues into new eras and new ears.

Hosted by: Kelvin Huggins

Presented by: The Blues Hotel Collective - your home for EVERYTHING BLUES.

Website: https://www.theblueshotel.com.au/

Keep the blues alive.

© 2026 The Blues Hotel Collective.

This episode traces February 6th as a date where exile, protest, and musical reinvention all converge in the story of the blues. We begin in 1820 with the departure of the ship Elizabeth—the “Mayflower of Liberia”—carrying 86 free African Americans toward Sierra Leone. That voyage planted the early seeds of spiritual restlessness, the feeling of being a stranger in one’s own land, a theme that would echo through field hollers and later shape the urban laments of Chicago blues.

We then move to 1961 and the “jail no bail” protest in Rock Hill, South Carolina, where SNCC leaders like Diane Nash joined the Friendship 9 in refusing to pay fines for a lunch‑counter sit‑in. Their decision to sit in jail rather than bend to an unjust system mirrors the resilience at the heart of the blues—a refusal to break, even when the world demands it.

From there, February 6th becomes a map of musical evolution. In 1936, Bumblebee Slim records “Hard Rocks in My Bed,” a gritty Depression‑era track that bridges the piano‑driven blues of the 1920s with the electrified Chicago sound to come. In 1913, Bob Geddins is born in Texas; after moving to Oakland, he builds the West Coast blues from the ground up, crafting classics like “Tin Pan Alley” and proving the blues had a home far beyond the Delta. And in 1958, a teenage George Harrison joins the Quarrymen—setting in motion the Beatles’ rise as global ambassadors who would introduce Muddy Waters and other American blues giants to audiences who might never have heard them otherwise.

We close by honoring the losses tied to this date: Irish guitar titan Gary Moore, whose ferocious playing showed the blues could fill stadiums, and “Microwave” Dave Gallagher, a cornerstone of the Alabama scene and a tireless educator devoted to keeping the craft alive. February 6th stands as a reminder that the blues is a journey—across oceans, across eras, and across generations—carried by people who refused to let the music or the truth behind it fade.

Hosted by: Kelvin Huggins

Presented by: The Blues Hotel Collective - your home for EVERYTHING BLUES.

Website: https://www.theblueshotel.com.au/

Keep the blues alive.

© 2026 The Blues Hotel Collective.

In this episode, we land on February 5th—a date that traces the blues from broken promises in the cotton fields to boundary‑breaking sessions in New York studios. We start in 1866 with Thaddeus Stevens’ failed attempt to grant 40 acres to freed families, and follow how that defeat forced Black Southerners into the debt trap of sharecropping—the “pressure cooker” where field hollers hardened into the blues as an emotional escape from unkept American promises. Then we jump to 1917, when the Immigration Act choked off foreign labor, opening Northern factory doors and fueling the Great Migration that carried the music from acoustic front porches to the electrified clubs of Chicago.

From there, the calendar turns into a studio log. In 1953, Willie Mabon cuts “I’m Mad” in Chicago, taking the city’s sound in a cooler, jazz‑tinged direction that still tops the R&B charts. In 1962, Ray Charles walks into Capitol Studios to begin Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, proving that the “high lonesome” of country and the “worried mind” of the blues are two sides of the same coin—and that genre lines are meant to be crossed.

We also trace the lives tied to this date: Memphis jug band leader Will Shade, who helped define Beale Street’s 1920s sound; Al Kooper, whose work with the Blues Project helped bridge Chicago blues into the ’60s rock counterculture; Chicago guitarist Kenneth “Buddy” Scott, the lifeblood of Westside clubs when the blues slipped off the mainstream radar; and blues shouter Piney Brown, who carried the fire from the swing era into the R&B explosion. February 5th emerges as a full arc in miniature—from dusty promises and forced labor to city lights, crossover hits, and revival scenes—showing how the blues keeps turning hard history into enduring truth.

Hosted by: Kelvin Huggins

Presented by: The Blues Hotel Collective - your home for EVERYTHING BLUES.

Website: https://www.theblueshotel.com.au/

Keep the blues alive.

© 2026 The Blues Hotel Collective.

This episode turns to February 4th, a date where civil rights, commerce, and the blues all collide. We begin in Tuskegee, Alabama, with the birth of Rosa Parks—the “mother of the civil rights movement”—and trace how her quiet refusal in 1955 echoes the core themes of the blues: sorrow, resolve, and the demand to be treated as human. Her era becomes the backdrop for modern electric blues, as Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf plug in and give that struggle a roaring voice.

We then move to 1971, when Major League Baseball finally agrees to honor Negro League players in the Hall of Fame, a moment that mirrors the music industry’s late recognition of “race records” as American masterpieces. From there, the story shifts to money and mainstream power: Johnny Winter’s record‑shattering $600,000 Columbia deal in 1969 proves the blues can fill arenas, and the 1977 release of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours shows how a band that started as Chicago blues disciples could transform that language into one of the biggest pop albums of all time.

Along the way, we spotlight the births of Mississippi‑born guitarist Joe Beard, who carried Delta DNA to Rochester, and harmonica ace Curtis Salgado, whose mentorship of John Belushi helped spark The Blues Brothers phenomenon. We close by honoring the deaths of Louis Jordan—the “King of the Jukebox” whose jump blues lit the fuse for rock and R&B—and Cecil Gant, the “GI singing sensation” who proved a bluesman could shake the house and break your heart at the piano. February 4th emerges as a snapshot of how the blues moves: from bus seats to ballparks, from juke joints to platinum records, always insisting on dignity and leaving its fingerprints on everything it touches.

Hosted by: Kelvin Huggins

Presented by: The Blues Hotel Collective - your home for EVERYTHING BLUES.

Website: https://www.theblueshotel.com.au/

Keep the blues alive.

© 2026 The Blues Hotel Collective.

This episode sits with February 3rd—a single date that reads like a compressed history of Black struggle, joy, and reinvention through the blues. We start in 1870 with the ratification of the 15th Amendment, tracing how the promise of the vote and its betrayal in Reconstruction hardened field hollers into 12‑bar blues, the emotional soundtrack of disenfranchisement and sharecropping. We then move to 1956, when Autherine Lucy walked onto the campus of the University of Alabama, her fight for dignity echoing the quiet demands embedded in 1950s blues lyrics.

From there, we step onto the diamond in 1920 as Rube Foster launches the Negro National League, drawing a powerful parallel between the Negro Leagues and the Chitlin’ Circuit—two traveling ecosystems of Black excellence sharing the same roads, hotels, and communities. The date then becomes a studio logbook: Muddy Waters cutting “My Eyes Keep Me in Trouble” in 1955 with Little Walter and Willie Dixon, Bob Dylan’s early blues‑soaked demos in 1961, and The Blues Brothers’ A Briefcase Full of Blues hitting number one in 1979, dragging Chicago and Memphis grooves into suburban living rooms and jump‑starting a mass blues revival.

We spotlight the births of Johnny “Guitar” Watson—space‑age jump‑blues pioneer turned funk‑blues icon—and Jesse “Baby Face” Thomas, whose decades‑long career anchors the Texas sound. Finally, we confront February 3rd as a day of loss: the death of session wizard Wild Jimmy Spruill, and the 1959 plane crash that took Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper—a moment remembered as “the day the music died,” but also a deep cut to the blues, as Holly’s Bo Diddley‑inspired rhythms carried the music to the world. February 3rd emerges as a living ledger of resilience, where ballots, ballparks, and backbeats all feed the same river called the blues.

Hosted by: Kelvin Huggins

Presented by: The Blues Hotel Collective

Keep the blues alive.

© 2026 The Blues Hotel Collective.

In this episode, we turn the calendar to February 2nd and watch the blues reshape itself—on stage, in the streets, and across the ocean. We begin in 1904 with the marriage that created “Ma and Pa Rainey,” tracing how Gertrude “Ma” Rainey rose to become the “Mother of the Blues,” standardizing the 12‑bar form, mentoring Bessie Smith, and turning a traveling act into a cultural force.

From there, we jump to 1948, when President Harry Truman’s civil rights message to Congress—calling for an end to poll taxes and lynching—echoed the dignity and defiance long sung on the Chitlin Circuit, where Black musicians faced Jim Crow every night on the road.

We then follow the “rebellious child of the blues” into rock and roll: Buddy Holly’s final Winter Dance Party show in 1959, and the Beatles’ first professional gig outside Liverpool in 1962, where British bands absorbed Muddy Waters and Chuck Berry and sold the blues back to the world.

Finally, we trace a poetic twist in the story of the Mississippi Sheiks: the birth of guitarist Walter Vincent in 1901, the death of bassist Sam Chapman in 1983—both on February 2nd—bookending a legacy that runs from “Sitting on Top of the World” to the outer edges of the genre with James Blood Ulmer’s boundary‑breaking blend of blues, funk, and free jazz. February 2nd emerges as a day when the blues marries tradition to rebellion, and local struggle to global sound.

Hosted by: Kelvin Huggins

Presented by: The Blues Hotel Collective

Keep the blues alive.

© 2026 The Blues Hotel Collective.