Aretha Franklin, Count Basie join Blues Hall of Fame

Aretha Franklin, Count Basie, Booker T. & the MGs are among the performers named as inductees to the Blues Hall of Fame.

The Blues Foundation announced this year's honourees on Friday. An induction ceremony is scheduled for May 8 at the Halloran Centre for the Performing Arts and Education in Memphis, Tennessee, reports variety.com.

The Blues Foundation points out that the very first record Franklin ever released after signing with Columbia was a song called "Today I Sing the Blues" and her fifth album was "Unforgettable: A Tribute to Dinah Washington". In 1980 she released a compilation of her more blues-oriented early material, "Aretha Sings the Blues".

The Blues Foundation names recordings as well as artists to its Hall of Fame, and the singles being inducted this year include Muddy Waters' "Rollin' Stone", Ray Charles' "I Got a Woman" and Elmore James "Shake Your Moneymaker" along with Elmore James' 1965 compilation "The Sky Is Crying".

Ida Cox and guitarist Pee Way Crayton are the other two performers joining the Hall of Fame, which will also honour the late Folkways Records executive Moses "Moe" Asch.

The May 8 induction ceremony in Memphis will be followed a night later by contemporary honours given out at the 40th annual Blues Music Awards. The museum itself will put items connected with the inductees on display starting the day of the ceremony.

--IANS

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