Page 38 - Blues Festival Guide Magazine 2024 Digital Edition

about seven years with the American Folk Blues Festival tour,
where he hooked up with Eddie Taylor, Sunnyland Slim, Odie
Payne, Carey Bell, Lurrie Bell, Memphis Slim and Hubert
Sumlin. After that, he worked with Willie Mabon in Europe,
Mississippi Heat and Jimmy Rogers. “That’s when I felt I had
come into the blues. The Delta blues. I played a little jazz, but I
feel the blues. During those years I got to know Pinetop Perkins
and Willie ‘Big Eyes’ Smith, and we all got to be really tight.
They used to call us ‘The Roadrunners’ ‘cause we were so old
and could drive 12 to 20 hours and come to the gigs full of
energy, but we mostly got our energy from Pinetop. He’d get
on the bandstand with so much energy; we’d just look at him,
and knew we just had to play at his level.”
Bob has done a lot of session work over the years
with many of the blues royalty, including Jimmy Rogers,
Homesick James, Snooky Prior, Willie “Big Eyes" Smith,
Eddy Clearwater, Louisiana Red and Bob Corritore & Friends
compilation albums. Bob has always been happy to be the
bass man in the background, but finally, with encouragement
Bob’s resume is like a Who’s Who of the blues. He’s played from his old friend Sunnyland Slim, he stepped out in front
or recorded with almost all the legends in the business, with a as a band leader and recorded some albums under his own
few exceptions. “I never played with Muddy or Little Walter. name. In The House – Live At Lucerne, Vol. 1, released in
I used to go to Walter’s rehearsals, but he didn’t think I was 2002, was recorded live at a Swiss blues festival in 1998. His
good enough to play with him, I guess. Everybody played second album, Bob is Back in Town, was recorded in Chicago
with Little Walter but me.” Thanks to Willie Dixon, Bob spent and released in 2006. Having played on over 30 Delmark

Heather Crosse, Bob Corritore, Bob Stroger and Billy Flynn perform at Ground Zero Blues Club in Clarksdale, MS.

36 Blues Festival Guide 2024