Living Blues Magazine

Living Blues #299 (November/December 2025 features master Chicago bass player Bob Stroger. At age 94 bassist Bob Stroger may be the oldest active performer in the blues—and active is the key word. Stroger’s schedule would wear out a man half his age. But Bob is loving it. He is Chicago’s first-call bass player and likes being a busy man. His career spans almost the entirety of postwar Chicago blues and we sit down with him for a stroll through the many years he has lived holding down its bottom. Soul singer Wilson Meadows first recorded with the vocal group the Zircons in 1962 for Federal. Over the next 60 years he recorded a string of hits and has been a star on the southern soul circuit for decades. Austin-based vocalist Jai Malano has been making a name for herself blending and bending musical roots genres to create her own distinctive style. This issue’s Let It Roll! features Jimmie Rodgers at his recording session for Victor Records, in Camden, New Jersey on November 30, 1927. America’s Blue Yodeler had an extraordinary impact on the history of American music in a remarkably short career. Meridian, Mississippi’s Rodgers recorded 111 songs over a six-year career that was cut short by tuberculosis when he was 33. We take a look at his second recording date for Victor, which included his biggest hit, Blue Yodel (T for Texas).

All of this plus Breaking Out with A.J. Haynes, LB Talks To Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, the latest in Blues News, and over 50 reviews.