It's a Blues Kind of Day

Big Mama Thornton first sang Hound Dog, made famous by Elvis Presley, and she also wrote "Ball 'n' Chain" made famous by Janis Joplin. 

Along with Sister Rosetta Tharpe (below), she is a progenitor of American rock and blues.

A blues musician I knew a bit, through my father, was Bull Moose Jackson who had hits in the late 1940s and early 1950s with "dirty blues" songs like "Big Ten Inch Record", "I Want a Bowlegged Woman", and "Nosey Joe". 

In later years, he occasionally played Saxophone with my father's band while working as a caterer at Howard University.  

When Aerosmith recorded "Big 10 Inch," Bull's music career was briefly revitalized in the early 1980s, but it did not last long as he got cancer in 1987 and died in 1989 at age 70.