Living Blues Magazine

Living Blues #297 (July/August 2025) features Portland’s King of the Blues Norman “Boogie Cat” Sylvester. For nearly 60 years Sylvester has played the blues for fans in the Pacific Northwest. His passion for the blues has never waned.
New Orleans’ Seventh Ward is one of the fundamental cauldrons of American music. From Jelly Roll Morton to Allen Toussaint, its roots run deep. Soul and blues vocalist Sierra Green is the latest star to come out of the Seventh Ward.
Texas southern soul singer Donnie Ray scored his biggest hit in 2000, with the smooth, grooving A Letter to My Baby. Since then, he has been a fixture on the scene, regularly touring the Deep South and East Coast.
The earliest blues records did not feature a guitar. But within a few years the first recordings of the instrument began to appear. Writer Jas Obrecht takes a look at these earliest of the early blues guitarists in The First Blues Guitarists on Record: Sylvester Weaver and His Contemporaries, 1923–1924.
This issue’s Let It Roll focusses on Hound Dog Taylor. Perhaps the most fun ever captured on record, Hound Dog Taylor’s first recording for Alligator Records, Hound Dog Taylor and the HouseRockers, captured lightning in a bottle. Taylor and his band, Brewer Phillips on guitar and Ted Harvey on drums, played with a wild and joyous abandon that was infectious and exhilarating.
Jim “Big Bear” Simpson has spent over 60 years in the music business. During the 1970s he promoted a series of American Blues Legends tours in Europe. Also a gifted photographer, his access allowed him to capture some of the best blues and jazz artists of the time.
All of this plus the 2025 Living Blues Awards Winners, Breaking Out with Memphissippi Sounds, the latest in Blues News, and over 60 record, book, and film reviews.