Chicago Blues Songs for West Coast

[suburbaknght]

I'm looking for some Chicago Blues style songs for some students of mine to practice with (I mostly use pop, country, and jazz). Any suggestions?

Thank you for your help.

[Tonya4WCS]

Nina Simone - Do I Move You? That is a good bluesy WCS

[leftfeetnyc]

Nina isn't Chicago Blues though.

Some songs you'll hear fairly often in WCS are:

Kansas City
Sweet Home Chicago
Mannish Boy

[jennyisdancing]

Sonny Watson's Street Swing site has a nice long list (http://www.streetswing.com/1swgmus.htm) of WCS blues songs.

[leftfeetnyc]

Very few of those on Sonny's site are blues, and of the blues song, fewer that are Chicago Blues.

There's a lot of R&B on there that gets mistaken as blues.

[Tonya4WCS]

Etta James - Hawg for you

Even though she was born in the Los Angeles area: It was at the Chicago-based Chess label (where she recorded for Chess and its Argo and Cadet subsidiaries) that she molded her identity as a singer of both modern blues and pop-R&B ballads.

[Tonya4WCS]

Low Rawls: Tobacco Road is a good, slow one.

Rawls was born on 1st December 1933 in Chicago, Illinois. His father abandoned his family and Lou was raised by his grandmother. His first meeting with music was when he was seven years old, in a Baptist church choir. He was mostly influenced by the Chicago Regal theatre where he had the opportunity to see the best in black entertainment.He and classmate, Sam Cooke, would harmonize in the school lavatory.

[jennyisdancing]

Very few of those on Sonny's site are blues, and of the blues song, fewer that are Chicago Blues.

There's a lot of R&B on there that gets mistaken as blues.

True - I did not mean to imply that every song on Sonny's list was a blues song. I know the difference between blues and R&B, and I like them both.

For a good Chicago blues song, how about the most obvious one - Sweet Home Chicago?