In this episode of Blues Moments in Time, January 12 steps forward not as a day of tragedy or legislation, but as a celebration — a date stamped with beginnings, resilience, and the way we choose to remember. At the center is Ruth Brown, the “girl who sang the blues,” whose birthday becomes a kind of living memorial. We follow her journey from sneaking out to teenage club gigs, through car crashes, industry neglect, and years working as a domestic, to her return as a celebrated artist and fierce advocate for musicians’ rights.

We also look at how modern storytellers have intentionally claimed this date — from the online premiere of Ruth Brown, The Girl Who Sang the Blues to the way streaming-era commemorations teach audiences to mark the calendar and check back in with her story each year. January 12 shows how blues history is not frozen in old shellac, but constantly rewritten by how we share and revisit these lives.

Unlike many dates in music history, January 12 isn’t dominated by famous deaths from the blues pantheon. Instead, it leans toward birth, renewal, and the quiet politics of personal struggle — the contracts signed, the pay fought for, the respect demanded over a lifetime. In a genre so often marked by hard endings, January 12 stands as a reminder that some days on the blues calendar belong to the joy of what was born, not the sorrow of what was taken away.

Hosted by: Kelvin Huggins

Presented by: The Blues Hotel Collective

Keep the blues alive.

© 2026 The Blues Hotel Collective.

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.

January 10 runs like a hidden thread through blues history – a single date where beginnings and endings collide. On this day, the business language of Black music was quietly revolutionized by Jerry Wexler, who helped retire the “race records” label and usher in “Rhythm and Blues.” It’s the birthday of Max Roach, whose insistence that music could be a weapon for civil rights reshaped the climate in which blues artists told their truths. And it’s also the day the stage lights dimmed on one of the music’s fiercest architects, when Howlin’ Wolf left this world in 1976.

In this episode of Blues Moments in Time, we trace January 10 across the map – from Mississippi plantations and Southern barracks to Chicago’s Westside clubs and neighborhood bars where the amps still buzz. We meet Eddie “The Chief” Clearwater, who strapped rock and roll fire onto traditional blues, and Byron “Wildchild” Gibson, a working-band lifer who proves the music survives not just in legends, but in local rooms and late nights.

Through these intertwined stories, January 10 becomes more than a date on the calendar. It’s a lens on migration and memory, the fight against segregation, the politics of who gets named and who gets forgotten, and the constant tug-of-war between preserving the roots and chasing the next electric spark.

Hosted by: Kelvin Huggins

Presented by: The Blues Hotel Collective

Keep the blues alive.

© 2026 The Blues Hotel Collective.