Blues Moments in Time - January 11: Bread, Roses, and the Hammond Soul

On this episode of Blues Moments in Time, January 11 becomes a day where labor strikes, inventions, and sidemen’s stories all braid into the blues. We start in 1912 with the “Bread and Roses” strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts, where immigrant textile workers demanded not just wages to live on, but dignity and beauty in their lives—a cry that mirrors the emotional script of the blues: hard times, unfair systems, and a stubborn insistence on something better.

From there, we follow the Great Migration into the industrial Midwest, where factories, steel mills, and assembly lines became the backdrop for urban, electrified blues. Into this world arrives Lawrence Hammond, born January 11, 1895, whose Hammond organ would change the sound of church and club alike—its “churchy swell” bridging Sunday-morning gospel and Saturday-night moans, giving soul blues and blues rock one of their most powerful voices.

We also mark the birthdays of swamp-blues master Slim Harpo, alto sax man Tab Smith, New Orleans-rooted bandleader Wilbur de Paris, and Hammond himself—architects of grooves, horn lines, and tones that shaped mid-century Black music. Finally, we honor the passing of trumpeter Bob Enos of Roomful of Blues, a working-band stalwart whose horn kept big-band blues energy alive on stages and in studios. January 11 reminds us that the blues is built by workers, inventors, and “everyday geniuses” whose sounds carry both bread and roses in every note.

Hosted by: Kelvin Huggins

Presented by: The Blues Hotel Collective

Keep the blues alive.

© 2026 The Blues Hotel Collective.