Watch blues great Billy Boy Arnold tear it up back in 1976

Celebrating the 90th birthday of harp hero Billy Boy Arnold with a performance of "I Was Fooled" at Chicago's 1815 Club. 

Happy Birthday Phil Alvin!

Celebrating the birthday of Phil Alvin with a couple of performances with his Blasters brother Dave Alvin and more. 

LINKS 

Los Angeles Daily News The Blasters' Phil Alvin hospitalized with unknown illness

Phil Alvin's Sweet Relief Fund Those wishing to help in Phil's hospital care can contribute here 

Get a copy of The Blasters' career-spanning compilation Mandatory via Bandcamp right here. 

Happy Birthday Billy Boy Arnold!

Here's Chicago blues harp hero reprising "I Wish You Would" with Phil Alvin on Art Fein's Poker Party back in 1993. 

Phil Alvin and brother Dave play a couple of Big Bill Broonzy tunes

In honour of Phil's 70th birthday today, here he is with brother Dave reprising "All By Myself,""Key To The Highway" and more.

Billy Boy Arnold releases memoir The Blues Dream of Billy Boy Arnold

The Blues Dream of Billy Boy Arnold

by Billy Boy Arnold with Kim Field

Simply put, Billy Boy Arnold is one of the last men standing from the Chicago blues scene’s raucous heyday. What’s more, unlike most artists in this electrifying melting pot, who were Southern transplants, Arnold—a harmonica master who shared stages with Bo Diddley, Muddy Waters, and Howlin’ Wolf, plus a singer and hitmaker in his own right who first recorded the standards “I Wish You Would” and “I Ain’t Got You”—was born right here and has lived nowhere else. This makes his perspective on Chicago blues, its players, and its locales all the rarer and all the more valuable. Arnold has witnessed musical generations come and go, from the decline of prewar country blues to the birth of the electric blues and the worldwide spread of rock and roll. Working here in collaboration with writer and fellow musician Kim Field, he gets it all down. 

The Blues Dream of Billy Boy Arnold is a remarkably clear-eyed testament to more than eighty years of musical love and creation, from Arnold’s adolescent quest to locate the legendary Sonny Boy Williamson, the story of how he named Bo Diddley Bo Diddley, and the ups and downs of his seven-decade recording career. Arnold’s tale—candidly told with humour, insight, and grit—is one that no fan of modern American music can afford to miss. Get a copy right here. 

JD McPherson vs Billy Boy Arnold

JD McPherson just covered Billy Boy Arnold's I Wish You Would for a limited-run 45.  I'll keep the original.