J.B. Lenoir

Lenoir was one of the blues' most unique artists. He sang like a woman, dressed in zebra-print suits, wrote politically charged lyrics and played stripped-down boogie. Born in Mississippi, he never surrendered the primal shuffle of rural blues when relocating to Chicago in 1949. Yet Lenoir was no bumpkin; just crank "Eisenhower Blues" -- "Taken all my money to pay the tax/ I'm only givin' you people the natural facts/ I only tellin' you people my belief/ Because I am headed straight on relief."