Bobby 'Blue' Bland

Bobby 'Blue' Bland (1989)

Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages Audio, July 1989

Bobby Bland talks about his influences, including MOR men like Perry Como and Andy Williams, and about the ups and downs of his career. Oh, and how C.L. Franklin gave him "the squall".

File format: mp3 File size: 15.8mb Interview length: 17 minutes 12 seconds Sound quality: ****

Duke/Peacock Records: The Success Story

Overview by John Broven, Blues Unlimited, June 1964

WITH THE emergence of interest in blues recordings after the war, with its resultant popularity, it was only natural that there should be a multitude ...

Bobby Bland: Dreamer

Review by Bob Fisher, NME, November 1974

ONE DAY last week I tuned into Noel Edmunds and I heard it – and fell back into bed. ...

Talkin' Blues: John Lee Hooker/B.B. King/Bobby 'Blue' Bland

Retrospective and Interview by Charles Shaar Murray, NME, June 1982

THE BLUES speaks haltingly at first, haltingly and quietly in a darkened room. The curtains are drawn to shut out whatever passes for daylight during ...

Bobby Bland: The Best Of (MCA)

Review by Gavin Martin, NME, June 1982

FIRST time I've heard Bobby Bland and it's obvious – the man's a star. ...

Malaco: Soul’s Retirement Home

Report and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Times, The, July 1989

"BLUES SINGERS don't retire", said the late Howlin' Wolf, and Bobby "Blue" Bland might well agree with him. After thirty seven years virtually nonstop on ...

Two Steps from the Blues: The Gospel According to Bobby 'Blue' Bland

Book Excerpt by Barney Hoskyns, From a Whisper to a Scream (Fontana Books), 1991

WHEN HOWLIN' WOLF left Memphis for Chicago in late 1952, Sun Records' Sam Phillips was left with a crop of younger blues singers who in ...

Bobby “Blue” Bland: I Pity The Fool – The Duke Recordings, Vol. 1

Sleevenotes by Don Snowden, Chess/MCA Records, 1992

AN ENDURING IRONY of the periodic blues revivals that rear their heads is that each and every one has managed to pass by the ...

For Members Only: Bobby Bland on Malaco

Sleevenotes by Barney Hoskyns, Malaco Records, October 2010

TWENTY-FIVE years ago, searching for the extant spirit of southern soul, I made my way to a former Pepsi-Cola warehouse in a decidedly unlovely industrial ...

Bobby "Blue" Bland: Two Steps From The Blues (Soul Jam)

Review by Mike Atherton, Echoes, 2012

WHEN BOBBY BLAND'S debut LP Two Steps From The Blues crept out over here on Vogue in the early '60s, one reviewer, whether through bitchiness, ...