Louisiana-based guitarist and harpist Leslie Johnson got the nickname “Lazy Lester” in 1957, ostensibly because Excello Records producer Jay Miller thought it suited Johnson’s relaxed style, ...

Nashville’s Excello Records had a blues pipeline to J.D. Miller’s studio in southwest Louisiana. From 1955 through 1965, Miller produced swamp blues records for Excello, and many of the label’s ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. BATON ROUGE, La. (Louisiana First) — The Baton Rouge Blues Festival brings musicians from across Louisiana and the nation for a ...

The Baton Rouge Blues Festival will get underway in the capital city over the weekend of April 23-24, featuring more than 35 performances and nine interviews. The festival’s mission is to encourage ...

Leslie Johnson, the architect of Louisiana swamp-blues who was better known as "Lazy Lester," died Wednesday afternoon at his home in Paradise, California. He was 85. In the 1950s and ’60s, Johnson ...

Multiple tributes are planed at this weekend’s Baton Rouge Blues Festival to honor Leslie Johnson, the swamp blues pioneer better known as Lazy Lester. The singer, songwriter, harmonica player, ...

Swamp-blues artist Slim Harpo has long been one of Louisiana’s least chronicled music stars. The new book by British writer Martin Hawkins changes that. At 416 pages, Slim Harpo: Blues King Bee of ...

Kenny Neal, blues artist, will perform at the Charles Bender Performing Arts Center on June 8 before heading out to Switzerland to perform at the Montreux Jazz Festival. Originally New Orleans, Neal ...

No need to wonder what kind of music the roots-based Selwyn Birchwood plays. He describes it for us as “Electric Swamp Funkin’ Blues.” That distinctive gumbo continues on this, his fourth album for ...

The WMNF Song of the Day for March 18, 2026 is “Church of the Electric Swamp Funkin’ Blues” by Selwyn Birchwood. Selwyn Birchwood is a Blues guitarist, vocalist and songwriter from Tampa, Fl.