John Kessler

This is how radio looks, the new video version of Record Bin Roulette! 

It’s hard to trace the exact source of “Crow Jane”, but it’s a song that has outlasted many others from the early days of the blues. Its roots lay in the Piedmont region of Virginia and North and South Carolina. Rev. Gary Davis was known to perform it during the 1920’s, and the first recording was made in 1927 by guitarist Julius Daniels. Daniels is important partly because he was one of the first Black guitarists to record in the Southeast, inspiring others to follow.

This is how Record Bin Roulette LOOKS in VIDEO !

The Mississippi Sheiks were a popular string band of the 1920’s and 30’s, with a sound that was a crossover between country music and blues. Though Mississippi-based, their music differed from delta blues in some important ways.

This iconic hard-luck song was a hit when Bessie Smith recorded it in 1929, and with its timeless message and memorable melody, “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down And Out” has been a favorite for singers in almost every genre including jazz, blues, folk and rock. Bessie Smith was the most popular female jazz and blues singer of the 1920’s, and the highest paid black entertainer of the day. Known as “The Empress of the Blues”, she often worked with the top tier players in the business, including Louis Armstrong, Coleman Hawkins and James P. Johnson.

Here's the sparkling new VIDEO version of Record Bin Roulette:

This deceptively simple blues song is a masterpiece of restraint and execution. Recorded first in 1964, it features the voice of Muddy Waters and the piano of Otis Spann in call-and-response. Buoyed by composer Willie Dixon’s bass, Waters slide guitar speaks only twice in the entire song, with bone-chilling results.

Here's the shiny video version of Record Bin Roulette:

Although 8 out of 10 Americans live in cities, we still idealize a life in the country, and there are plenty of songs to prove it. And if you are considering a move to the boonies, there is actually free land available. The only catch is you’d have to live in Plainville, Kansas.

The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 was a disaster that reshaped the South. With flooding in 10 states, the river below Memphis reached 60 miles across in some places. Not only was farmland swallowed up, but many poor blacks were forced to work rebuilding levees. With no crop that year, many headed north in what was part of a large migration to urban centers.

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's the new video version of Record Bin Roulette!

Elmore James is a giant of the blues. His work as a songwriter, singer and guitarist put him near the top of the short list of greats. The songs he wrote and revived—  “Dust My Broom”, “Cry For Me Baby” and “Rollin’ and Tumblin’” —are revered as blues standards.

Hey! It's the shiny new video version of Record Bin Roulette! Check it out!

Companies like Coca Cola spend billions of dollars on advertising each year, much of it for product placement in movies, TV and books. But sometimes it happens the other way around—products find themselves written into pop songs. From Paul Simon’s “Kodachrome” to Janis Joplin’s “Mercedes Benz”, brand names have inspired some big hits…and the advertising is free.

Here’s the spiffy new video version of Record Bin Roulette:

Cars make great musical metaphors, and they’ve inspired some famous blues songs like “Cadillac Boogie”, “Maybelline” and “Mustang Sally”. K.C. Douglas came out with “Mercury Boogie” in 1949, a song that would go on to be a widely covered blues standard, known as “Mercury Blues”. Ford purchased the rights to the song for advertising (“Crazy ‘Bout a Ford Truck”), and it was a #2 hit for country singer Alan Jackson in 1993.

We could shock you with startling statistics about how the richest 1 percent own about 50 percent of the wealth, and how it’s been getting worse for the rest of us for a few decades now. But that’s depressing! And we’d much rather watch cartoons.

Like this 1933 Merrie Melodies gem “We’re in the Money”: