Blues with a Feeling - The Official Podcast

This week on Blues With A Feeling we're shining the spotlight on one of the most admired guitarists in blues history, the legendary Earl Hooker . Remarkably, after all these years, this will be the first time Earl Hooker has been featured on the program. Our feature album is the expanded edition of Two Bugs and a Roach , allowing us to explore both his celebrated late-career recordings and some fa...

This week on Blues With A Feeling we're heading to the West Coast of the USA for a classic live album from one of America's finest songwriters, guitarists and storytellers. Released in 2002 and recorded across a series of Californian performances, Out In California captures Dave Alvin and The Guilty Men doing what they do best - bringing songs to life on stage. From his days with The Blasters thro...

This week on BWAF we celebrate a milestone moment in Australian blues history — the 30th anniversary of Geoff Achison’s landmark 1996 album Mystery Train . Recorded shortly after Geoff’s breakthrough trip to Memphis for the International Blues Challenge, where he earned the Albert King Award for Most Outstanding Guitar Player , the album captures the beginning of his internationa...

This week on BWAF, we’re shining a spotlight on a modern legends of the blues — Lazy Lester — with his superb 2001 Antone’s Records release Blues Stop Knockin’ . Lester was one of the kings of harmonica blues and a founding architect of the Louisiana swamp sound, and this album captures him in full late‑career stride: sly, soulful, and unmistakably Lester. Joining him...

This week on BWAF, we welcome one of the great modern masters of West Coast blues guitar — Alex Schultz — as our special guest, alongside a deep dive into his elegant, soulful debut album Think About It . Alex has been part of my musical journey for more than three decades. I first saw him at Bluesfest in Byron Bay back in 1992, when he was tearing it up with Rod Piazza & the Might...

This week on Blues With A Feeling, Shaun shines a spotlight on one of Australia’s most electrifying bluesmen — Brisbane’s own Michael "Mojo" Webb , a guitarist, singer, songwriter and multi‑instrumentalist whose music channels the raw spirit of Muddy Waters, B.B. King, Howlin’ Wolf, Buddy Guy and Robert Johnson. Mojo’s second album The Cat (2012) is our classic featur...

This week on Blues With A Feeling, we’re heading back to France, 1975 — to the Nancy Jazz Pulsations festival — where Freddie King delivered one of the most electrifying live performances of his career. We’re featuring the classic Live in Nancy double album, a recording that captures Freddie and his band in full flight: raw, immediate, and utterly alive. Joining me this wee...

This week on BWAF we dive into something truly special — the winner of the 2014 Grammy Award for Best Blues Album, Get Up! by Ben Harper with Charlie Musselwhite. It’s a record carved out of lived experience: ten Harper originals delivered with fire and finesse, and Charlie’s Memphis‑born harmonica weaving through every track like a spell. I’ve been a Musselwhite fan since...

This week on Blues With A Feeling , Shaun sits down with one of the true ambassadors of Chicago Blues — Billy Branch . Across a remarkable fifty‑year career, Billy has become an Emmy Award winner, a three‑time Grammy nominee, a Blues Hall of Fame inductee, and one of the most recorded harmonica players of the modern era. Mentored by legends like James Cotton, Junior Wells, Willie Dixon and B...

  This week on BWAF, we pay tribute to the late Mike Henderson , who passed away on September 22 at the age of 69. His debut album with The Bluebloods, First Blood , remains one of the most explosive, soulful, and influential blues records of the 1990s — and it’s our feature album this week. Across the show we dive deep into First Blood ’s raw slide guitar, its hot‑rod tone,...

This week on Blues With A Feeling, Shaun brings you a full book of brand‑new blues, deep Chicago grooves, and a special feature on one of Junior Wells’ most overlooked gems. We kick off with fresh releases from Billy Branch & The Sons of Blues featuring Bobby Rush, Bywater Call, John Primer & Friends, and Harell Davenport — four powerful tracks that set the tone for a night of...

This week on BWAF, we celebrate one of the true giants of the blues as Buddy Guy turns 90 — and what better way to mark the occasion than with a deep dive into his Grammy‑winning 1994 masterpiece Slippin’ In . It was only two weeks ago that we featured his stunning Sweet Tea record, but when you’re talking about Buddy Guy, one show is never enough. Slippin’ In captures Budd...

This week on Blues With a Feeling , we continue a very special journey through the music of one of the most influential bands in the history of this program: The Paladins. Their sound, their energy, and their uncompromising commitment to American roots music played a huge role in shaping the identity of this show from its earliest days. And today, we revisit the band’s third release, Let&rsq...

This week on BWAF , we celebrate the 90th birthday of one of the true giants of modern blues — Buddy Guy — with a deep dive into one of the most daring and electrifying albums of his career: Sweet Tea (2001). Recorded in Oxford, Mississippi, Sweet Tea captures Buddy plugging straight into the Hill Country sound: raw, hypnotic, swamp‑thick grooves inspired by Junior Kimbrough, CeDell Da...

This week on BWAF, I'm bringing you a blues feast built around one of the great modern collaborations — B.B. King and Eric Clapton’s Grammy‑winning album Riding With the King . Across 12 tracks and 61 glorious minutes, two masters trade warmth, wisdom, and guitar lines that feel like conversations between old friends. I’ll take you through the album across four feature segments,...

This week on BWAF I’m shining a light on one of the most electrifying live blues recordings ever made — Otis Rush’s So Many Roads: Live in Japan . Recorded across two unforgettable Tokyo concerts in July 1975, this album captures Otis in full flight: inspired, fearless, and feeding off a crowd that welcomed him like a returning hero. With Jimmy Johnson’s guitar lines weavin...

This week on Blues With A Feeling , we shine a warm and grateful spotlight on one of the great architects of modern guitar playing: Hubert Sumlin. His 1998 album Wake Up Call sits at a remarkable point in his life — late in his career, seasoned by decades of triumph and heartbreak, yet still playing with that unmistakable spark that shaped generations. Sumlin spent his life as the heartbeat...

  This week on Blues With A Feeling , we open the door to a room most people never got to enter — a small studio in Paris, May 15, 1981, where Buddy Guy and Junior Wells sat down with nothing but a couple of Guild acoustics, some harps and fifty years of shared history between them. No band, no amps, no armour. Just two giants of the Chicago blues, alone and acoustic, telling the truth....

There’s a special kind of joy in saying this: welcome back to Blues With A Feeling. After a big few weeks of new music, travel, and life rolling on as it does, I’m settling in behind the mic tonight with something a little different — a blend of the brand‑new and the deeply familiar. We’ll open the show with two sets of fresh releases from across the blues world — Joh...

Some artists don’t just play the blues — they expand its emotional vocabulary. This week on  Blues With A Feeling , we welcome one of the most distinctive guitar voices of her generation: Laura Chavez , joining Shaun in conversation to celebrate the release of her long‑awaited debut solo album My Voice . For years, Laura has been the guitarist whose tone, fire, and emotional depth...

This week on Blues With A Feeling , we’re celebrating one of the great modern bluesmen by going back to the album that set his long road in motion. Before the national tours, before the magazine features, before the decades of relentless gigging, there was Cool On It — the mid‑80s record where a young Tinsley Ellis stepped up to the microphone for the first time and showed the world ex...

  G’day there my friends, and welcome to another week of Blues With A Feeling This week, we’re tipping our hats to a man whose shadow stretches from Linden, Texas all the way to Paris, France — the great T‑Bone Walker — and his 1969 Grammy‑winning masterpiece Good Feelin’ . Recorded in Paris in ’68, it’s T‑Bone in full command — unhurried, unbot...

This week on  Blues With A Feeling we’re taking a long, winding drive through the heart of the blues — from the red dirt roads of Texas to the electric back‑alleys of Chicago — and the whole night’s got that slow‑burning, wide‑sky feel about it. We open with two sets of New Releases , eleven fresh cuts that prove the blues is still kicking dust and taking names in 2026...

This week on Blues With A Feeling , we’re heading straight to Memphis for a full‑blown celebration of the 2026 Blues Music Awards — the biggest night in the blues world. The BMAs are where legends, lifers, innovators, and rising voices all gather under one roof, and this year’s ceremony delivered one of the strongest line‑ups in recent memory. Across the show, we’ll walk th...

This week on Blues With A Feeling , we’re coming home. Our classic album feature shines a warm spotlight on John Lee Hooker’s 1995 masterpiece Chill Out — a late‑career triumph from the patron saint of this program. For thirty years, BWAF opened with his incredible song The Healer , and Hooker’s voice, groove and spirit have been the heartbeat of Monday nights ever since. C...