Today I ran across a great show from 1955 called Rhythm and Blues Revue with performances by Sarah Vaughan, Nat King Cole, Cab Calloway and Bill Bailey, among others. My favorite moment in the video comes about halfway through while Sarah Vaughan is singing “Perdido.” The camera pans over to the drummer who is obviously being forced to wear a ridiculously ruffly calypso shirt, and the look on his face is just priceless. The other highlight for me is Nat King Cole singing “Calypso Blues” about 3/4 of the way through.

I started looking around for some other good blues performances on the Archive, and found this gem as well: Eva Cassidy Live at Blues Alley.

A few other items you might enjoy:

• “Middle Class Blues” by A Band Named Brian
• Little Wolves doing “Karaoke Kid”
• EL84 performing “You Left Me”