Tampa Red

• Genre: Chicago Blues
• Hometown: Chicago

About

A singer and guitarist of enormous influence, Tampa Red's thirty-year recording career yielded hundreds of recordings. Primarily known as a blues guitarist, Red played hokum, Swing, Ragtime, pop, jazz and just about anything else that was popular from the 1920s to the '50s. He was a slide guitarist with an uncommonly precise and linear touch whose playing couldn't have been further removed from the slashing Delta styles of people like Charlie Patton or Bukka White. His articulated phrasing and singing, melodic lines are closer to that of a horn player than any guitar player performing at the time. He is probably most famous for his work with pianist Georgia Tom Dorsey. In the 1930s the two cut a number of sides of outrageously risqué songs, many of which have become cult classics.

- Tom Heyman