Memphis is the cradle of blues music, a city whose history runs as deep as the Mississippi River hugging the city's limits. To celebrate that history, the Memphis-based Blues Foundation hosted six days of events, beginning with the Blues Hall of Fame induction ceremony and the 43rd Blues Music Awards. The award ceremonies preceded the four-night International Blues Challenge talent contest at various clubs on the historic Beale Street.
The celebrations were a sort of comeback for Memphis' blues scene. Though tough for the music industry as a whole, two years of COVID-induced shutdowns seemed particularly hard on the tight-knit blues community, where artists, industry workers and fans often intermingle like long-missed family and friends.
"I always say the industry has not been that kind to me, but so many of the people have," 2020 Hall of Fame inductee Bettye LaVette, a classic R&B singer known for her emotional-yet-controlled vocals, told GRAMMY.com.
Held May 4 at the historic Orpheum Theater's Halloran Centre for Performing Arts & Education, the Blues Hall of Fame induction ceremony was a particularly large and emotive occasion. Because of COVID shutdowns, no Hall of Fame induction ceremony was held in 2020 and no new inductees were announced in 2021. The 2020 and 2022 classes were combined for this year's event.
"My career has been one of the most ridiculous things you ever heard of," Lavette continued. "They have literally carried me to this fifth career that I'm experiencing now. I call it my fifth career because every one of the other four started with a big bang and then it all turned to s*** and I had to start all over again."
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The Blues Foundation started the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980 and has since inducted more than more than 400 artists, industry professionals, recordings, and works of literature. In 2015, the Hall of Fame established a brick-and-mortar presence in the foundation's downtown Memphis headquarters, which recently reopened following a renovation.
In addition to LaVette, 2020 performer inductees included Chicago harmonica player Billy Branch; singer Eddie Boyd; George "Harmonica" Smith; guitarist/singer/songwriter Syl Johnson, who passed away just three month earlier; and blues pioneer Victoria Spivey, whose induction was accepted by GRAMMY nominee Maria Muldaur.
Non-performer inductees in the 2020 class included pioneering roots producer Ralph Peer. French music scholar Sebastian Danchin's 2001 book Earl Hooker, Blues Master was entered as a Classic Of Blues Literature and Howlin' Wolf: The Chess Box as a classic album. Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup's original recording of "That's All Right (Mama)"; Bertha "Chippie" Hill's 1926 hit "Trouble in Mind"; "Future Blues" by Delta bluesman Willie Brown; B.B. King's first big hit, "3 O'Clock Blues"; and Ruth Brown's "Mama, He Treats Your Daughter Mean" were included in the Hall as classic singles.
Blues Hall of Famer Taj Mahal receives a star on the Orpheum Theatre-Memphis Sidewalk of Stars in Memphis, Tennessee | Photo: Greg Campbell/Getty Images
The 2022 class of inductees included performers Lucille Bogan and Little Willie John, whose induction was accepted by his son Keith John — a longtime backup singer for Stevie Wonder who evoked his father's soaring voice while thrilling the audience with off-the-cuff renditions of some of his father's hits like "Fever." Soul man Johnnie Taylor, another 2022 inductee, was honored in a separate, earlier ceremony to accommodate his family.
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2022 non-performers included songwriter Otis Blackwell and blues historian and DJ Mary Katherine Aldin. Bo Diddley's 1958 self-titled Chess/Checker debut was inducted as an album along with the singles "Good Rocking Tonight" by Roy Brown; "Rollin' and Tumblin'" by the Baby Face Leroy Trio; "Eyesight to the Blind" by Sonny Boy Williamson II; Bobby "Blue" Bland's "Farther Up the Road"; and B.B. King's "Rock Me Baby." English folklorist Bruce Bastin's 1986 work Red River Blues: The Blues Tradition in the Southeast was entered in the literature category.
The following night, veteran California bluesman Tommy Castro was the big winner at the 43rd Annual Blues Music Awards. Castro took home three of the night's biggest honors: B.B. Entertainer of the Year, Album of the Year for his Alligator Records release Tommy Castro Presents A Bluesman Came To Town, and, with his backing group, the Painkillers, Band of the Year.
"The one I really wanted to see us get was the Band of the Year [award] because these guys work really hard," Castro told GRAMMY.com backstage after the show. "Nobody's in this for the money. It's a steady gig, but nobody's making lots of money doing this. They're really doing it out of love; you have to really be behind the music."
Florida singer/guitarist Selwyn Birchwood — who first burst on the scene in 2013 when he won the International Blues Challenge, an unsigned band contest presented by the Blues Foundation — captured the night's other big award: Best Song for "I'd Climb Mountains," off of his 2021 release, Living in a Burning House.
Other big winners on the night included flame-haired Canadian guitarist Sue Foley, who took home awards for Traditional Blues Album and the Koko Taylor Award for Best Traditional Artist-Female. Clarksdale, Mississippi, blues guitarist and singer Christone "Kingfish" Ingram, fresh off a GRAMMY win for Best Contemporary Blues Album at the 2022 GRAMMYs, also received awards for Best Contemporary Blues Album for his record 662 and Best Contemporary Blues Artist-Male. Two-time GRAMMY winner Taj Mahal won Best Traditional Artist-Male.
In addition to Castro, the long night's lineup of performances included Birchwood, a second-line-inspired set from Louisiana favorite Kenny Neal, and a Bobby "Blue" Bland tribute by the late blues great's son, Rodd Bland and his Members Only Band, who took home the Best Emerging Artist Album award for Live on Beale Street.
All photos by Greg Campbell/Getty Images
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