J.B. Lenoir’s “Alabama Blues” is a rather well-known blues protest song. It stands out because, by the 1960s, it was increasingly rare for blues musicians to sing about poverty, despair, and social injustice. And, fifty years since the tune was recorded under the supervision of Chicago blues master Willie Dixon, its lyrics still carry a deep resonance.
Lenoir, who is a character in the song, expresses why he will never go back to Alabama. His sister and brother were killed in the state. The justice system let the killers go free.
Alabama is also a state he will never love because his brother defended his mother. Police shot him down. “I can’t help but to sit down and cry some times/Think about how my poor brother lost his life,” Lenoir sings.
In the song, Lenoir’s character decries the incarceration of his people “behind a barbed wire fence.” The song ends with Lenoir declaring, “Now you’re... (continua)

Note da : Korea Blues- J.B. Lenoir

 Korea Blues was recorded and released by Chess in 1951, as many American soldiers were dying in South Korea.
The Korea war saw a classic ‘Cold War’ dynamic where the United States intervened in South Korea after an invasion of the country a few days earlier from the North Korean communist regime, who was supported by Stalin. First referred to as a police action by the then president H.S. Truman, it was in fact, a military one. It is estimated that there were 33,686 U.S. deaths during the war.
The song is often referred to as the “Forgotten” or “Unknown” war, for the lack of public attention that it received, especially in relations to the wars that preceded (World War II) and succeeded it (Vietnam War). Lenoir was one of the few musicians to acknowledge the war in one of his songs. ‘Korean Blues’ is actually the first song about the Korean war where... (continua)