Living Blues Magazine

Living Blues #304 (September/October 2026) features guitarist Lil Ray Neal on the cover. Lil Ray Neal, the third son of Baton Rouge blues legend Raful Neal, was born in the blues. By age 15 he had formed the first Neal Brothers Band. In 1983 Little Milton hired him to play guitar in his band. Over the next 20 years Neal played guitar for Milton, Bobby Rush, and spent six years with Bobby Bland. After Bland died, Neal returned to Baton Rouge where he continues to gig and spends much of his time restoring classic cars. Chicago harp player Russ Green came to the blues after finishing film school. Mentored by Sugar Blue, Green employs an improvisational style that make his sound highly personal. On the heels of his second solo release, Stone Cold, Green’s horizons are expanding as he pushes the boundaries of blues harp. Velvet-voiced Vick Allen was 100 percent church when he was young. He has deep roots in two of Jackson, Mississippi’s legendary gospel bands, the Williams Brothers and the hard-rocking Canton Spirituals. But it was friendships with Mel Waiters and Willie Clayton that encouraged him to cross into the world of southern soul blues. This issue’s Let It Roll! features pre-war legend Tommy Johnson. Johnson was one of the most distinctive bluesmen of the pre-war era. We look at his first recording session for Victor in 1928 that yielded Big Road Blues, Maggie Campbell Blues, and the idiosyncratic Canned Heat Blues. With only a dozen issued sides, Johnson’s legacy still touches the blues music of today.
All of this plus Living Blues Talks To Keith Johnson about his involvement in Morgan Freeman’s Symphonic Blues Experience, the latest in Blues News, reviews including new releases from John Primer, Johnny Rawls and Dave Keller, and Terry “Harmonica” Bean, and reissues from Ma Rainey, Eddie “Blues Man” Kirkland, and Bukka White.