Sam Myers, the Late Blues Legend, Propels Us Into the Week With a Powerful New Album – Mother Jones
September 28, 2020
The pioneering blues singer, harmonica player, and drummer Sam Myers
For indispensable reporting on the coronavirus crisis, the election, and more, subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily newsletter.
When he was 7, Sam Myers was left blind by cataracts, which shaped his childhood and adulthood but never affected his solo tours and ascension of the blues world as a pioneering singer, harmonica player, and drummer from Mississippi. He became, before he died at the age of 70, one of the most decorated blues giants, jamming with Elmore James in the 1950s and with Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, and Little Walter.
Today marks the release, after decades of recording at bars, restaurants, and clubs, of a long-anticipated album, Sam Myers & the South Dallas Shoan-Nufferz: My Pal Sam. It’s a studio compilation of never-before-heard tracks, produced by Jack Chaplin, the versatile chef and blues champion who’s familiar to Recharge readers. The album is available through his Patreon page.
Chaplin is credited with getting Myers into the studio again and into Chaplin’s restaurants in Dallas and New London, Connecticut, along with the blues giant Lucky Peterson. And Chaplin himself has helped to keep the blues at bay, cooking for families and community members in need during the pandemic, with all the kindness and creativity found in his series Cooking With the Blues.
without free and fair elections, a vigorous free press, and engaged citizens to reclaim power from those who abuse it.
In this election year unlike any other—against a backdrop of a pandemic, an economic crisis, racial reckoning, and so much daily bluster—Mother Jones‘ journalism is driven by one simple question: Will America move closer to, or further from, justice and equity in the years to come?
If you’re able to, please join us in this mission with a donation today. Our reporting right now is focused on voting rights and election security, corruption, disinformation, racial and gender equity, and the climate crisis. We can’t do it without the support of readers like you, and we need to give it everything we’ve got between now and November. Thank you.
DEMOCRACY DOES NOT EXIST…
without free and fair elections, a vigorous free press, and engaged citizens to reclaim power from those who abuse it.
In this election year unlike any other—against a backdrop of a pandemic, an economic crisis, racial reckoning, and so much daily bluster—Mother Jones‘ journalism is driven by one simple question: Will America move closer to, or further from, justice and equity in the years to come?
If you’re able to, please join us in this mission with a donation today. Our reporting right now is focused on voting rights and election security, corruption, disinformation, racial and gender equity, and the climate crisis. We can’t do it without the support of readers like you, and we need to give it everything we’ve got between now and November. Thank you.
