Bobby "Blue" Bland
| Bobby "Blue" Bland | |
|---|---|
Bland at the Long Beach Blues Festival, 1996
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Robert Calvin Brooks |
| Also known as | "Blue" or "The Lion of the Blues" |
| Born |
January 27, 1930 Barretville, Tennessee, U.S. |
| Died | June 23, 2013 (aged 83) Germantown, Tennessee, U.S. |
| Genres | Blues, soul blues, R&B, soul |
| Occupation(s) | Singer-songwriter, arranger, bandleader |
| Instruments | Vocals, harmonica |
| Labels | Chess, Modern, Malaco, Duke, ABC |
| Associated acts | B.B. King, Lonnie Mack, Junior Parker |
| Website | bobbybluebland.com |
Robert Calvin "Bobby" Bland (né Robert Calvin Brooks; January 27, 1930 – June 23, 2013), known professionally as Bobby "Blue" Bland, was an American blues and R&B singer.
Bland developed a sound that mixed gospel with the blues and R&B. He was described as "among the great storytellers of blues and soul music... [who] created tempestuous arias of love, betrayal and resignation, set against roiling, dramatic orchestrations, and left the listener drained but awed." He was sometimes referred to as the "Lion of the Blues" and as the "Sinatra of the Blues". His music was also influenced by Nat King Cole.
Bland was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1981, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992, and the Memphis Music Hall of Fame in 2012. He received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame described him as "second in stature only to B.B. King as a product of Memphis's Beale Street blues scene".
Bland was born Robert Calvin Brooks in the small town of Barretville, Tennessee. His father, I. J. Brooks, abandoned the family not long after Robert's birth. Robert later acquired the name "Bland" from his stepfather, Leroy Bridgeforth, who was also called Leroy Bland. Bobby Bland never graduated from school.
With his mother, Bland moved to Memphis in 1947, where he started singing with local gospel groups, including the Miniatures. Eager to expand his interests, he began frequenting the city's famous Beale Street, where he became associated with an ad hoc circle of aspiring musicians including B.B. King, Rosco Gordon, Junior Parker and , who collectively took the name of the Beale Streeters.
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