Each year, Blues Before Sunrise takes a walk through the shadowy back alleys of the blues world with its infamous Halloween broadcast — and 2025’s edition is no exception. Subtitled “The Son of the Ghost of the Return of the Revenge of the Trials of the Travails of the Annual BBS Halloween Show,” this marathon of musical mischief proves once again that ghosts, ghouls, and mojo hands have long haunted the grooves of American music. Steve Cushing resurrects the creepiest cuts from the blues, jazz, and R&B archives — same old songs, same old order — but, as he promises, “scarier than ever!”

Hour One rattles the chains with vintage swing and vaudeville horror. Louis Armstrong opens with “Skeletons in the Closet,” that tongue-in-cheek jazz waltz that turns death into a dance partner. Scatman Crothers’ “The Thing” and “Mr. Ghost Goes to Town” keep the humor macabre, while Cab Calloway’s “Old Man of the Mountain” and “Ghost of Smokey Joe” remind us that the king of hi-de-ho had one foot in the grave and the other on the bandstand. Bessie Smith’s “Haunted House Blues” and Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ demented suite — from “I Put a Spell on You” to “Frenzy” — take the first hour out in grand, gory fashion.

Hour Two creeps into rhythm & blues territory, where rock ’n’ roll and the supernatural meet. Big T. Tyler’s “King Kong” and Johnny Fuller’s “Haunted House” set the tone — jukebox monsters with a dance beat. Chuck Berry’s “Down Bound Train” delivers a fire-and-brimstone sermon from a dream of damnation, while Bo Diddley’s “Mummy Walk” and “Bo Meets the Monster” confirm that the bluesman’s square guitar could raise the dead. John Lee Hooker, Sonny Boy Williamson I, and Lightning Hopkins keep the chill going with tales of graveyards, devils, and bad mojo, proving the line between sinner and storyteller can be thin indeed.

The prewar hour — Hour Three — dives deep into 78-rpm spookiness. Here we meet ghosts both literal and metaphorical: Walter Davis and Lonnie Johnson moan through “Blue Ghost Blues,” Victoria Spivey and Memphis Minnie warn of haunted houses and doomed lovers, and Texas Alexander joins the spectral parade with “Blue Devil Blues.” In these brittle old recordings, recorded between the 1920s and 1930s, the blues’ fascination with death, spirits, and superstition sounds as real as the crackle of the shellac itself. Lonnie Johnson’s recurring “Devil’s Got the Blues” series ties it all together, reminding listeners that in the blues, the devil never stays gone for long.

By Hour Four, the show heads down to Louisiana for some back-swamp voodoo and electric hoodoo. Junior Wells, Willie Mabon, and Muddy Waters chant up the spirits with “Hoodoo Man,” “Seventh Son,” and “Louisiana Blues.” This is Chicago’s dark magic — Muddy’s “Mojo” and “My John the Conqueror Root” mixing conjure and electricity until the room hums. Lightning Slim, Lonesome Sundown, and Tabby Thomas keep the bayou bubbling with “Hoodoo Blues” and “Mojo Man,” while Lurrie Bell, Hop Wilson, and Lightning Hopkins close it out, proving that the power of the mojo hand still packs a supernatural charge.

Hour Five lifts the spell gently, bringing the listener back to earth with smoother but no less haunted sounds. Erskine Hawkins, Georgia Carr, and Dinah Washington offer late-night torch songs tinged with loneliness and longing, the perfect comedown after four hours of ghost stories. Little Milton, J.R. Parker, and Earl Gaines deliver soulful, post-midnight blues; Kid Thomas and Dusty Brown keep the grit alive. Finally, Fleetwood Mac’s ethereal instrumental “Albatross” drifts like fog through a graveyard, carrying the Halloween show to its ghostly close.

For nearly three decades, Blues Before Sunrise has turned Halloween into an art form — not with shock value or cheap tricks, but by celebrating the deep, strange relationship between blues and the supernatural. From the prewar “Devil’s Got the Blues” to Chicago’s “Hoodoo Man,” it’s all part of the same haunted lineage. So dim the lights, lock the doors, and, as Steve warns, don’t listen alone.