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Article: Top Ten Blues Artists Often Snubbed on Top Ten Lists - Part 1
Top 10 lists and related features have been popular since paper newspapers in ancient times. Lists are fun, informative, and more importantly, easy to create, particularly in the AI era. The thing about top 10 lists is they are often inaccurate or incomplete. When you think about it, there's almost no way those could be definitive because the writer or an AI bot will be looking at various written sources and the list will reflect the depth of the research.
The thing about Top 10 Blues lists is that they can be among the most inaccurate, especially if written or AI generated by a rock magazine. Such publications may actually mention legitimate artists but you can generally tell the depth of research by who’s named in the list.
The primary reason for an inaccuracy is because the history of recorded Blues music goes back to the twenties and each decade afterwards saw two or three major developments and sometimes dozens of smaller regional styles. In other words, the Blues has existed longer than many of the writers who may or may not have time or interest in covering the music in detail.
One good example is a list that goes no further back than Robert Johnson from the 30s, whose legendary accomplishments includes being a great songwriter. He was, according to testimony by friends and acquaintances, a knowledgeable musician who understood song structures and adapted a lot of the previously improvisational Blues into shorter, very catchy songs.
Note: Saying his songs were catchy is not the same as saying those were trivial, etc.
For example, his song “Dust My Broom” can be traced back to artists who recorded earlier 78's. He was like a lot of blues artists; creating new sounds and sometimes taking an earlier idea and making it his own. So, he’s credited with that song but “The Sparks Brothers” created an earlier version of the song in 1932 (and called it something else).
Another example from the 60s is the hit “Going Up The Country” by Canned Heat. That song is almost literally a copy of a 20's Blues song by Henry Thomas. Some articles do mention this, even by those written by younger writers who have taken some trouble to at least peruse previous trivia lists. Certainly AI will have already scraped it and presented it to prompters as a cool fact.
A top 10 list would be by its very nature, incomplete, given that there's been, in my opinion, several eras or major genres of Blues plus a lot of sub-genres. Also, this essay is not intended to criticize or attack any particular writer or list; it’s mainly to provide context for this list, which is about snubbed Blues artists. After all, we only know what we’ve read and so are vulnerable to nitpicking or gotchas, so we should all be humble.
The list will be done in parts so I can give each artist a nice write up. So, here's the list with the items in no particular order. One thing to keep in mind is the artists I’m listing will seem pretty obvious to hard-core blues fans.
Top Ten Blues Artists Who Are Often Snubbed on Top Ten Lists.
Charley Patton
In the 60s and '70s, one of the most popular titles given to a Blues artist was "Father (or King) of the Blues," which was similar to "Godfather of Punk" or "Godfather of Metal," In other words, the title can mean everything or nothing depending on the depth of research and of course, entertainment value.
This type of title, which if you really think about it is actually quite vague, as there have been quite a few artists listed as Father of the Blues, etc. However, many of those honored with that title knew about this artist as young men, heard his music either through 78s, actual contact or live, and then carried the torch of Delta Blues into the electric age. It's like the fabled original Sex Pistols gig where most of the audience later went on to become stars of punk.
Patton was one of the earliest Blues artists to be recorded on disc and from various accounts over the decades, one sees a picture of a man who’s not just some “originator” of Delta Blues. After all, he was playing the African-American music of the time and happened to be one of those who were recorded.
He was considered to be quite the showman and did things that modern rock and rollers did later on, like playing the guitar behind his head, and other acrobatic stunts. So Charley was more than a Father of the Blues, he was one of the forefathers of rock and roll stage acts.
For sure, you'll see his name here and there on some lists but as a general rule many Blues lists don't go that far back. However many of the songs he recorded were done later by modern blues bands just as songs by Robert Johnson were.
Examples of such songs include "Shake It And Break It," "Pony Blues," "Spoonful Blues," Pea Vine Blues" and many others. Many people, including many Blues fans, don't know this because those songs were often revised, changed, retitled or the riffs copped in modern versions later on.
Another reason that artists like Charlie Patton didn't receive the credit they deserved in modern times goes back to how the Blues was recorded, the music often becoming the property of those who understood copyright law (and later credited as the songwriter). Robert Johnson’s legacy survived in part because famous Rock artists in the 60s cited him as an influence. That would be an article in itself, and we'll cover that in the future.
Charley Patton isn't an obscure figure to most hardcore Blues fans. You can go to any music streaming site or YouTube and type in his name and you'll get basically his whole catalog.
So, in a sense he's one of the legends whose music is there in plain sight but younger writers often fail to direct the reader's attention to the "Father Of The Delta Blues." Many articles in the past have started Blues history from Robert Johnson or even later.
Charley Patton is a name that any true Blues fan will know, and if you don't, this is a great opportunity to deepen your Blues knowledge.
Elmore James
The song “Dust My Broom” contains a riff that was originally identified as a hook in the song by Robert Johnson, who adapted an earlier song by the Sparks Brothers, who probably heard it from someone who we’ll never know the name of.
The Robert Johnson and Sparks Brothers riff were more or less the same and Elmo brought those riffs into the electric age in a way many earlier artists had no way of knowing how to do, since electric guitars were rare in the late 40s. Elmore James’ arrangement of Dust My Broom is one of the primary riffs and progressions in the Blues genre. Just about every Blues band has done some version of that song or learned their music from it.
Elmo was an early contemporary with Muddy Waters, Howling Wolf and others, and they were very aware of him also. The reason Elmore James isn't more well known is simply because he died young at his peak from a heart attack. Back then there was no media or Internet to carry his legacy into the realm of legend (and commercial exploitation).
However, this slide guitar legend is another one of those artists whose entire catalog is there in plain sight on music sites and YouTube. In fact, those who aren't familiar with him will find that he's definitely influenced a lot of later electric Blues.
Also, the reason a lot of blues artists discovered Robert Johnson was because they heard the electric version of Dust My Broom by James. That electric version of the slide guitar riff is now one of the most immortal riffs in history, easily the "Smoke On The Water" of the Blues.
Ritchie Blackmore, the guitarist who came up with the Smoke On The Water riff, often commented that it was simply the Beethoven 5th Symphony opening riff in reverse, although other experts have traced it to other classical music songs. Blackmore's attribution was probably a little tongue in cheek but he was an avid listener of classical music so he probably did get the riff from somewhere and brought it into the modern age.
So Elmore James was a similar artist in that he took a riff that originated way back in the 30s with the Sparks Brothers and brought it into the modern age where it became a foundational part of the Blues vocabulary.
Al Handa
Aug 1, 2026
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