Blues Moments in Time - January 24: Lovesick Lines, Blues Brothers, and an Empire’s Shadow

On this episode of Blues Moments in Time, we drop the needle on January 24—a date that quietly sits at the crossroads of blues, country, empire, and pop culture. We trace how Hank Williams Sr.’s 1949 release of “Lovesick Blues” carried blues phrasing and emotional storytelling straight into the heart of mainstream country, blurring genre lines and revealing just how deep the blues runs in American music.

From there, we jump to the birth of John Belushi, whose work with The Blues Brothers helped ignite a late-20th-century blues revival, using film, television, and live performance to reintroduce legends to a new generation. Finally, we zoom out to 1901 and the death of Queen Victoria, exploring how the end of the Victorian era and shifting colonial structures shaped the conditions of the African diaspora—and, ultimately, the world that birthed the blues as a voice of resilience and identity.

This is January 24: not a single headline moment, but an echo of legacy—where every guitar bend and soulful lyric carries the weight of history forward.

Hosted by: Kelvin Huggins

Presented by: The Blues Hotel Collective

Keep the blues alive.

© 2026 The Blues Hotel Collective.