Little has been discovered about William Harris who cut fourteen issued sides at four sessions for Gannet in 1927 and 1928. Two sides were never issued, “No Black Woman Can Sleep In My Cowlot” and “T.B. Blues” while several have yet to be found: “Nothin’ Right Blues (Bearing In Mind)”, “Gonna Get Me A Woman That I Calls My Own”, “I’m A Roamin’ Gambler” and “I Was Born In The Country, Raised In Town.” Harris is thought to be from Glendora, Mississippi. He made his first recordings in Birmingham, Alabama, and may have worked around that city. Accounts suggest that Harris was a performer with F.S. Wolcott’s Rabbit Foot Minstrels and that he may have traveled the medicine show circuit.Theories that he traveled the medicine show circuit are lent further credence by his second recording date, which occured over a three-day period in October 1928 in Richmond, Indiana; among the tracks cut by Harris was "Kansas City Blues," previously recorded by Jim Jackson, another medicine show entertainer. Additionally, two other staples of the circuit, Frank Stokes and Papa Charlie Jackson, previously recorded "Take Me Back," updated by Harris as "Hot Time Blues." In all likelihood, these are mysteries which will never be solved -- his trail ends after this final session. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide When gayle Dean Wardlow played some of his records to some older Mississippi musicians they commented that he must have been from Mississippi. “That’s pure Delta blues there”, commented bluesman Booker Miller. Guitarist Hayes McMullen recalls witnessing him at a house party at the Wildwood Plantation in Mississippi in 1927.
You Better Run: The Essential Junior Kimbrough
Junior Kimbrough (July 28, 1930 — January 17, 1998)Born David Kimbrough in Hudsonville, Mississippi, Kimbrough lived in the North Mississippi Hill Country around Holly Springs. He recorded for the Fat Possum Records label. He was a long-time associate of labelmate R. L. Burnside, and the Burnside and Kimbrough families often collaborated on musical projects. This relationship continues today. Rockabilly musician Charlie Feathers called Kimbrough "the beginning and end of all music." This is written on Kimbrough's tombstone outside his family's church, the Kimbrough Family Church, in Holly Springs.Kimbrough began playing guitar in his youth, and counted Lightnin' Hopkins as an early influence. In the late 1950s Kimbrough began playing in his own style, which made use of mid-tempo rhythms and a steady drone he played with his thumb on the bass strings of his guitar. His music is characterized by the tricky syncopations between his droning bass strings and his mid-range melodies. His soloing style has been described as modal and features languorous runs in the mid and upper register. The result is complex and funky, described by music critic Robert Palmer as "hypnotic."Kimbrough's music defies easy categorization. In solo and ensemble settings it is often polyrhythmic, which links it explicitly to the music of Africa. Fellow North Mississippi bluesman and former Kimbrough bassist Eric Deaton has suggested similarities between Junior Kimbrough's music and Malian bluesman Ali Farka's. In 1966 Junior Kimbrough traveled to Memphis from his home in North Mississippi and recorded for noted R&B/Gospel producer and owner of the Goldwax record label, Quinton Claunch. Claunch was a founder of Hi Records (whose entire catalog will be reissued by Fat Possum Records) and is known as the man that gave James Carr and O.V. Wright their start. Junior Kimbrough recorded one session in one afternoon at American Studios. Claunch declined to release the recordings, deeming them too country. Forty some years later, Bruce Watson of Big Legal Mess Records approached Claunch to buy the original master tapes and the rights to release the recordings made that day. These songs were released by Big Legal Mess Records in 2009 as First Recordings. Kimbrough's debut release was a cover version of Lowell Fulson's "Tramp" released as a single on independent label Philwood in 1967. On the label of the 45 Kimbrough recorded in for Philwood his name was spelled incorrectly as Junior Kimbell and the song Tramp was listed as Tram? The b-side on that single was called "You Can't Leave Me". Among his other early recordings are two duets with rockabilly legend and childhood friend Charlie Feathers in 1969. Feathers counted Kimbrough as an early influence and Kimbrough even gave Feathers some of his earliest lessons on guitar.
Kimbrough recorded very little in the 1970s, contributing an early version of "Meet Me in the City" to a European blues anthology. With his band, the Soul Blues Boys, Kimbrough recorded again in the 1980s, releasing a single in 1982 ("Keep Your Hands Off Her" b/w "I Feel Good, Little Girl"). The High Water label recorded a 1988 session with Kimbrough and the Soul Blues Boys, releasing it in 1997 with his 1982 single as "Do The Rump". Beginning around 1992, Kimbrough operated a juke joint known as "Junior's Place" in Chulahoma, Mississippi, which attracted visitors from around the world, including members of U2 and The Rolling Stones. Kimbrough's sons, musicians Kinney and David Malone Kimbrough (two of Kimbrough's rumored to be twenty-eight children), kept it open following his death, until it burned to the ground on April 6, 2000.
Kimbrough came to national attention in 1992 with his debut album, All Night Long. Robert Palmer produced the album for Fat Possum Records, recording it in a local church with Junior's son Kent "Kinney" Kimbrough (aka Kenny Malone) on drums and R. L. Burnside's son Garry Burnside on bass guitar. The album featured many of his most celebrated songs, including the title track, the complexly melodic "Meet Me In The City," and "You Better Run" a harrowing ballad of attempted rape. All Night Long earned near-unanimous praise from critics, receiving four stars in Rolling Stone magazine. His stock continued to rise the following year after live footage of him playing "All Night Long" in one of his juke joints appeared in the Robert Mugge directed, Robert Palmer narrated film documentary, Deep Blues: A Musical Pilgrimage to the Crossroads. This performance was actually recorded earlier in 1990.A second album for Fat Possum, Sad Days and Lonely Nights followed in 1994. A video for the album's title track featured Kimbrough, Garry Burnside and Kent Kimbrough playing in Kimbrough's juke joint. The last album he would record, Most Things Haven't Worked Out, appeared on Fat Possum in 1997. Following his death in 1998 in Holly Springs, Fat Possum released two posthumous compilation albums of material Kimbrough recorded in the 1990s, God Knows I Tried (1998) and Meet Me in The City (1999). A greatest hits compilation, You Better Run: The Essential Junior Kimbrough, followed in 2002.
Junior Kimbrough died of a heart attack in 1998 in Holly Springs following a stroke, at the age of 67.
Robert Leroy Johnson (May 8, 1911 – August 16, 1938) was an American blues musician, among the most famous of Delta blues musicians. His landmark recordings from 1936–1937 display a remarkable combination of singing, guitar skills, and songwriting talent that have influenced generations of musicians. Johnson's shadowy, poorly documented life and death at age 27 have given rise to much legend. Robert Johnson was born in Hazlehurst, Mississippi, probably on May 8, 1911 or 1912, to Julia Major Dodds (born October, 1874) and Noah Johnson (born December, 1884). Julia was married to Charles Dodds (born February, 1865), a relatively prosperous landowner and furniture maker to whom she had borne ten children. Dodds had been forced by a lynch mob to leave Hazlehurst following a dispute with white landowners. Julia herself left Hazlehurst with baby Robert, but after some two years, sent him to live in Memphis with Dodds, who had changed his name to Charles Spencer.
Around 1919, Robert rejoined his mother in the area around Tunica and Robinsonville, Mississippi. Julia's new husband was known as Dusty Willis, who was 24 years younger than she, and Robert was remembered by some residents as "Little Robert Dusty".[13] However, he was registered at the Indian Creek School in Tunica as Robert Spencer. He is listed as Robert Spencer in the 1920 census with Will and Julia Willis in Lucas, Arkansas, where they lived for a short time. Robert was at school in 1924 and 1927[11] and the quality of his signature on his marriage certificate[14] suggests that he studied continuously and was relatively well educated for a boy of his background. One school friend, Willie Coffee, has been discovered and filmed. He recalls that Robert was already noted for playing the harmonica and jaw harp.[15]
After school, Robert adopted the surname of his natural father, signing himself as Robert Johnson on the certificate of his marriage to sixteen-year-old Virginia Travis in February 1929. She died shortly after in childbirth.
Around this time, the noted blues musician Son House moved to Robinsonville where his musical partner, Willie Brown already lived. Late in life, House remembered Johnson as a boy who had followed him around and tried very unsuccessfully to copy him. Johnson then left the Robinsonville area, reappearing after a few months with a miraculous guitar technique.[17] His boast seems to be credible; Johnson later recorded versions of "Preaching the Blues" and "Walking Blues" in House's vocal and guitar style. However, Son's chronology is questioned by Guralnick. When House moved to Robinsonville in 1930, Johnson was a young adult, already married and widowed. The following year, he was living near Hazelhurst, where he married for the second time. From this base Johnson began travelling up and down the Delta as an itinerant musician. According to a legend known to modern blues fans, Robert Johnson was a young black man living on a plantation in rural Mississippi. Branded with a burning desire to become a great blues musician, he was instructed to take his guitar to a crossroad near Dockery Plantation at midnight. There he was met by a large black man (the Devil) who took the guitar and tuned it. After tuning the guitar, the Devil played a few songs and then returned it to Johnson, giving him mastery of the guitar. This was, in effect, a deal with the Devil; in exchange Robert Johnson was able to create the blues for which he became famous.This resembles the story told to Steve LaVere that Ike Zinnerman of Hazelhurst, Mississippi learned to play the guitar at midnight while sitting on tombstones. Zinnerman is believed to have influenced the playing of the young Robert Johnson. Recent research by blues scholar Bruce Conforth uncovered Ike Zinnerman's daughter and the story becomes much clearer, including the fact that Johnson and Zinnerman did, in fact, practice in a graveyard at night (because it was quiet and no one would disturb them) but that it was not the Hazlehurst cemetery as had been believed. Johnson spent about a year living with, and learning from, Zinnerman, who ultimately accompanied Johnson back up to the Delta to look after him.When Johnson arrived in a new town, he would play for tips on street corners or in front of the local barbershop or a restaurant. He played what his audience asked for — not necessarily his own compositions, and not necessarily blues. With an ability to pick up tunes at first hearing, Johnson had no trouble giving his audiences what they wanted, and certain of his contemporaries, most notably Johnny Shines, later remarked on Johnson's interest in jazz and country. Johnson also had an uncanny ability to establish a rapport with his audience — in every town in which he stopped, Johnson would establish ties to the local community that would serve him well when he passed through again a month or a year later.
Fellow musician Johnny Shines was 17 when he met Johnson in 1933. He estimated that Johnson was maybe a year older than himself. In Samuel Charters' Robert Johnson, the author quotes Shines as saying:
"Robert was a very friendly person, even though he was sulky at times, you know. And I hung around Robert for quite a while. One evening he disappeared. He was kind of peculiar fellow. Robert'd be standing up playing some place, playing like nobody's business. At about that time it was a hustle with him as well as a pleasure. And money'd be coming from all directions. But Robert'd just pick up and walk off and leave you standing there playing. And you wouldn't see Robert no more maybe in two or three weeks.... So Robert and I, we began journeying off. I was just, matter of fact, tagging along."
During this time Johnson established what would be a relatively long-term relationship with Estella Coleman, a woman who was about fifteen years his elder and the mother of musician Robert Lockwood, Jr. Around 1936, Johnson sought out H. C. Speir in Jackson, Mississippi, who ran a general store and doubled as a talent scout. Speir, who helped the careers of many blues players, put Johnson in touch with Ernie Oertle, who offered to record the young musician in San Antonio, Texas. At the recording session, held on November 23, 1936 in rooms at the Gunter Hotel in San Antonio.which Brunswick Records had set up as a temporary studio, Johnson reportedly performed facing the wall. This has been cited as evidence he was a shy man and reserved performer, a conclusion played up in the inaccurate liner notes of the 1961 album King of the Delta Blues Singers. Johnson was probably nervous during his session in the makeshift recording studio (a new and alien environment for the musician), but he may simply have been focusing on the demands of his emotive performances. In addition, playing into the corner of a wall (referred to as "corner loading" was a sound-enhancing technique that simulated the acoustical booths of better-equipped studios. In the ensuing three-day session, Johnson played sixteen selections, and recorded alternate takes for most of these.
Among the songs Johnson recorded in San Antonio were "Come On In My Kitchen", "Kind Hearted Woman Blues", "I Believe I'll Dust My Broom" and "Cross Road Blues". "Come on in My Kitchen" included the lines: "The woman I love took from my best friend/Some joker got lucky, stole her back again/You better come on in my kitchen, it's going to be rainin' outdoors." In "Cross Road Blues," another of his songs, he sang: "I went to the crossroads, fell down on my knees/I went to the crossroads, fell down on my knees/I asked the Lord above, have mercy, save poor Bob if you please/Uumb, standing at the crossroads I tried to flag a ride/Standing at the crossroads I tried to flag a ride/Ain't nobody seem to know me, everybody pass me by. In 1937, Johnson traveled to Dallas, Texas, for another recording session in a makeshift studio at the Brunswick Record Building, 508 Park Avenue.[39] Eleven records from this session would be released within the following year. "Stones In My Passway" and "Me And The Devil" are both about betrayal, a recurring theme in country blues. "Hellhound On My Trail" utilizes another common theme: fear of the Devil. Other themes in Johnson's music include impotence ("Dead Shrimp Blues" and "Phonograph Blues") and infidelity ("Terraplane Blues", "If I Had Possession Over Judgement Day" and "Love in Vain").
Because Johnson did two takes of most songs during these sessions, and recordings of those takes survived, for Johnson we have more opportunity to compare two different performances of a single song than we do for any other blues performer of his time and place.
Six of Johnson's blues songs mention the devil or some form of the supernatural. In "Me And The Devil" he began, "Early this morning when you knocked upon my door/Early this morning, umb, when you knocked upon my door/And I said, 'Hello, Satan, I believe it's time to go,'" before leading into "You may bury my body down by the highway side/You may bury my body, uumh, down by the highway side/So my old evil spirit can catch a Greyhound bus and ride." Johnson died on August 16, 1938, at the age of 27, near Greenwood, Mississippi. He had been playing for a few weeks at a country dance in a town about 15 miles (24 km) from Greenwood. There are a number of accounts and theories regarding the events preceding his death. One of these is that one evening Johnson began flirting with a woman at a dance. One version of this rumor says she was the wife of the juke joint owner, and that she was unaware that the bottle of whiskey she gave to Johnson had been poisoned by her husband; in another version, she was a married woman unrelated to the juke joint owner.
Researcher Mack McCormick asserts that he interviewed Johnson's alleged poisoner in the 1970s and obtained a tacit admission of guilt from the man. Johnson was allegedly offered an open bottle of whiskey that was laced with strychnine. Fellow blues legend Sonny Boy Williamson, whose often-fabricated stories and half-truths warrant taking any claims lightly at best,[citation needed] allegedly advised him never to drink from an offered bottle that had already been opened. According to Williamson, Johnson replied, "Don't ever knock a bottle out of my hand." Soon after, he was offered another open bottle of whiskey, also laced with strychnine, and accepted it. Honeyboy Edwards, another blues musician, claims to have been present as well and essentially confirms this account, though his statement is questionable.
Johnson is reported to have begun feeling ill the evening after drinking from the bottle and had to be helped back to his room in the early morning hours. Over the next three days, his condition steadily worsened and witnesses reported that he died in a convulsive state of severe pain—symptoms which are consistent with strychnine poisoning. Strychnine was a common pesticide and thus was readily available at the time. Although it is very bitter-tasting and extremely toxic, a small quantity dissolved in a harsh-tasting solution such as whiskey could plausibly have gone unnoticed while still producing the symptoms (over a period of days due to the reduced dosage) and eventual death that Johnson experienced. Johnson's songs, vocal phrasing and guitar style have influenced a broad range of musicians, including Muddy Waters, Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, Johnny Winter, Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton; Clapton has called Johnson "the most important blues singer that ever lived". Johnson was among the first musicians to be inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "early influence" category in 1986. He was ranked fifth in Rolling Stone's list of 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.
Big Joe Williams (born Joseph Lee Williams, October 16, 1903 - December 17, 1982) was an American delta blues musician and songwriter.Born in Crawford, Mississippi,[1] Williams as a youth began wandering across the United States busking and playing stores, bars, alleys and work camps. In the early 1920s he worked in the Rabbit Foot Minstrels revue and recorded with the Birmingham Jug Band in 1930 for the Okeh label.
In 1934 he was in St. Louis, Missouri, where he met record producer Lester Melrose who signed him to a recording contract with Bluebird Records in 1935. He stayed with Bluebird for ten years, recording such blues hits as "Baby, Please Don't Go" (1935) and "Crawlin' King Snake" (1941), both songs later covered by many other performers. He also recorded with other blues singers, including Sonny Boy Williamson I, Robert Nighthawk and Peetie Wheatstraw.
Williams remained a noted blues artist in the 1950s and 1960s, with his guitar style and vocals becoming popular with folk-blues fans. He recorded for the Trumpet, Delmark, Prestige and Vocalion labels, among others. He became a regular on the concert and coffeehouse circuits, touring Europe and Japan in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and performing at major U.S. festivals.Wiiliams' guitar playing is decidedly in the Delta Blues style, and yet is unique. He played driving rhythm and virtuosic lead lines simultaneously and sang over it all. He played with picks both on his thumb and index finger, plus his guitar was very heavily modified. Williams added a rudimentary electric pick-up, whose wires coiled all over the top of his guitar. He also added three extra strings, creating unison pairs for the first, second and fourth strings. During the 1920s and 1930s, Big Joe had gradually added these extra strings in order to keep other guitar players from being able to play his guitar. Williams was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame on October 4, 1992.
He died December 17, 1982 in Macon, Mississippi. Williams was buried in a private cemetery outside Crawford near the Lowndes County line. His headstone was primarily paid for by friends and partially funded by a collection taken up among musicians at Clifford Antone's nightclub in Austin, Texas, organized by California music writer Dan Forte, and erected through the Mt. Zion Memorial Fund on October 9, 1994. Harmonica virtuoso and one time touring companion of Williams, Charlie Musselwhite, delivered the eulogy at the unveiling. Williams' headstone epitaph, composed by Forte, proclaims him "King of the 9 String Guitar."
Remaining funds raised for Williams' memorial were donated by the Mt. Zion Memorial Fund to the Delta Blues Museum in order to purchase the last 9-string guitar from Williams' family. However, it was recently discovered that the guitar purchased by the Museum is actually a 12-string guitar that Williams used in his later days. The last 9-string (a Fifties Kay cutaway converted to Williams' 9-string specifications) is missing at this time. Williams' previous 9-string (converted from a 1944 Gibson L-7) is in the possession of Williams' 'road agent' and fellow traveler, Blewett Thomas.
One of Williams' 9-string guitars can be found under the counter of the Jazz Record Mart in Chicago, which is owned by Bob Koester, the founder of Delmark Records.
Born: 1890, Texas
Died: 1940
Active: '30s
Genres: Blues
Instrument: Vocals, Guitar
Representative Albums: "The Howling Wolf (1930-1931)," "Complete Recorded Works (1930-1931)," "True Texas Blues"
Representative Songs: "Howling Wolf Blues," "Mama's Quittin' and Leavin',," "Forty-Five Blues"
J.T. "Funny Paper" Smith was a pioneering force behind the development of the Texas blues guitar style of the pre-war era; in addition to honing a signature sound distinguished by intricate melody lines and simple, repetitive bass riffs, he was also a gifted composer, authoring songs of surprising narrative complexity. A contemporary of such legends as Blind Lemon Jefferson and Dennis "Little Hat" Jones, next to nothing concrete is known of John T. Smith's life; assumed to have been born in East Texas during the latter half of the 1880s, he was a minstrel who wandered about the panhandle region, performing at fairs, fish fries, dances and other community events (often in the company of figures including Tom Shaw, Texas Alexander and Bernice Edwards). Smith settled down long enough to record some 22 songs between 1930 and 1931, among them his trademark number "Howling Wolf Blues, Parts One and Two"; indeed, he claimed the alternate nickname "Howling Wolf" some two decades before it was appropriated by his more famous successor, Chester Burnett. (The true story behind Smith's more common nickname remains a matter of some debate -- some blues archivists claim he was instead dubbed "Funny Papa," with the "Funny Paper" alias resulting only from record company error.) His career came to an abrupt end during the mid-'30s, when he was arrested for murdering a man over a gambling dispute; Smith was found guilty and imprisoned, and is believed to have died in his cell circa 1940. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide
William Samuel "Blind Willie" McTell (May 5, 1898 (sometimes reported as 1901 or 1903) – August 19, 1959) was an influential American blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist. He was a twelve-string finger picking Piedmont blues guitarist, and recorded 149 songs between 1927 and 1956.Born William Samuel McTier (or McTear[1]) in Thomson, Georgia, blind in one eye, McTell had lost his remaining vision by late childhood, but became an adept reader of Braille. He showed proficiency in music from an early age and learned to play the six-string guitar as soon as he could. His father left the family when McTell was still young, so when his mother died in the 1920s, he left his hometown and became a wandering busker. He began his recording career in 1927 for Victor Records in Atlanta.His style was singular: a form of country blues, bridging the gap between the raw blues of the early part of the 20th Century and the more refined East Coast "Piedmont" sound. He took on the less common and more unwieldy 12-string guitar because of its volume. One of McTell's most famous songs, "Statesboro Blues", has been covered by artists such as Taj Mahal, David Bromberg, The Allman Brothers Band and Ralph McTell, who changed his name on account of liking the song.[7] Jack White of The White Stripes considers McTell an influence (their 2000 album De Stijl was dedicated to him and featured a cover of his song "Your Southern Can Is Mine"), as did Kurt Cobain of Nirvana. Bob Dylan has paid tribute to McTell on at least four occasions: Firstly in his 1965 song "Highway 61 Revisited" in the second verse, which begins, "Georgia Sam he had a bloody nose," referring to one of Blind Willie McTell's many recording names; later in "Blind Willie McTell" (recorded in 1983 but released on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 in 1991); then with covers of McTell's "Broke Down Engine" and "Delia" on his 1993 album World Gone Wrong.[8] In his song "Po'Boy", off the 2001 album Love & Theft, Dylan again paid homage to McTell by appropriating the line "had to go to Florida dodging them Georgia laws" directly from the latter's "Kill It Kid".
Post-war, he recorded for Atlantic Records and Regal Records in 1949, but these recordings met with less commercial success than his previous works. He continued to perform around Atlanta, but his career was cut short by ill health, predominantly diabetes and alcoholism.McTell died in Milledgeville, Georgia, of a stroke in 1959.
Huddie William Ledbetter (January 1888 – December 6, 1949) was an American folk musician, notable for his strong vocals, his virtuosity on the twelve string guitar, and the rich songbook of folk standards he introduced.
He is best known as Leadbelly or Lead Belly. Though many releases list him as "Leadbelly," he himself spelled it "Lead Belly." This is also the usage on his tombstone,[1][2] as well as of the Lead Belly Foundation.
Although he most commonly played the twelve string, he could also play the piano, mandolin, harmonica, violin, concertina, and accordion. In some of his recordings, such as in one of his versions of the folk ballad "John Hardy", he performs on the accordion instead of the guitar. In other recordings he just sings while clapping his hands or stomping his foot. The topics of Lead Belly's music covered a wide range of subjects, including gospel songs; blues songs about women, liquor and racism; and folk songs about cowboys, prison, work, sailors, cattle herding and dancing. He also wrote songs concerning the newsmakers of the day, such as President Franklin Roosevelt, Adolf Hitler, Jean Harlow, the Scottsboro Boys, and Howard Hughes.According to the 1900 census, Hudy (the spelling given in the census) is one of two listed children (the other is his stepsister, Australia Carr), of Wes and Sallie (Brown) Ledbetter of Justice Precinct 2, Harrison County, Texas. Wesley and Sallie were legally wed on February 26, 1888, shortly after Lead Belly's likely date of birth, even though they had lived together as husband and wife for years.the family moved to Leigh, Texas, when he was five. By 1903, Lead Belly was already a 'musicianer', a singer and guitarist of some note. He performed for nearby Shreveport, Louisiana audiences in St. Paul's Bottoms, a notorious red-light district in the city. Lead Belly began to develop his own style of music after exposure to a variety of musical influences on Shreveport's Fannin Street, a row of saloons, brothels, and dance halls in the Bottoms.Lead Belly's volatile nature sometimes led him into trouble with the law. In 1915 he was convicted "of carrying a pistol" and sentenced to do time on the Harrison County chain gang, from which he miraculously escaped, finding work in nearby Bowie county under the assumed name of Walter Boyd. In January 1918 he was imprisoned a second time, this time after killing one of his relatives, Will Stafford, in a fight over a woman. In 1918 he was incarcerated in Sugar Land, Texas, where he probably learned the song "Midnight Special".[4] In 1925 he was pardoned and released, having served seven years, or virtually all of the minimum of his seven-to-35-year sentence, after writing a song appealing to Governor Pat Morris Neff for his freedom. Lead Belly had swayed Governor Neff by appealing to his strong religious values. That, in combination with good behavior (including entertaining by playing for the guards and fellow prisoners), was Lead Belly's ticket out of jail. It was quite a testament to his persuasive powers, as Neff had run for governor on a pledge not to issue pardons (pardon by the governor was at that time the only recourse for prisoners, since in most Southern prisons there was no provision for parole). According to Charles K. Wolf and Kip Lornell's book, The Life and Legend of Leadbelly (1999), Neff had regularly brought guests to the prison on Sunday picnics to hear Lead Belly perform.
In 1930, Lead Belly was back in prison, after a summary trial, this time in Louisiana, for attempted homicide — he had knifed a white man in a fight. It was there, three years later, that he was "discovered" by musicologists John Lomax and his eighteen-year-old son Alan Lomax during a visit to the Angola Prison Farm. They were enchanted by Lead Belly's talent, passion, and singularity as a performer and recorded hundreds of his songs on portable aluminum disc recording equipment for the Library of Congress. They returned to record in July of the following year (1934). On August 1, Lead Belly was released (again having served almost all of his minimum sentence), this time after the Lomaxes had taken a petition to Louisiana Governor O.K. Allen at Lead Belly's urgent request. The petition was on the other side of a recording of his signature song, "Goodnight Irene." A prison official later wrote to John Lomax denying that Lead Belly's singing had anything to do with his release from Angola, and state prison records confirm that he was eligible for early release due to good behavior. A descendant of his has also confirmed this. For a time, however, both Lead Belly and the Lomaxes believed that the record they had taken to the governor had hastened his release from Angola.Lead Belly styled himself "King of the 12-string guitar," and despite his use of other instruments like the concertina, the most enduring image of Lead Belly as a performer is wielding his unusually large Stella twelve-string. This guitar had a slightly longer scale length than a standard guitar, slotted tuners, ladder bracing, and a trapeze-style tailpiece to resist bridge lifting.
Lead Belly played with finger picks much of the time, using a thumb pick to provide a walking bass line and occasionally to strum. This technique, combined with low tunings and heavy strings, gives many of his recordings a piano-like sound. Lead Belly's tuning is debatable, but appears to be a downtuned variant of standard tuning; more than likely he tuned his guitar strings relative to one another, so that the actual notes shifted as the strings wore. Lead Belly's playing style was popularized by Pete Seeger, who adopted the twelve-string guitar in the 1950s and released an instructional LP and book using Lead Belly as an exemplar of technique.
In some of the recordings where Lead Belly accompanied himself, he would make an unusual type of grunt between his verses, best described as "Haah!" Many of his songs, such as, "Looky Looky Yonder", "Take this Hammer", "Linin' Track" and "Julie Ann Johnson" feature this unusual vocalization. Lead Belly explained that, "Every time the men say 'haah', the hammer falls. The hammer rings, and we swing, and we sing",[8] an apparent reference to prisoners' work songs. The grunt represents the tired deep breaths the men would take while working, singing and pausing in cadence with the work.Lead Belly's vast songbook, much of which he adapted from previous sources, has provided material for numerous folk, country, pop and rock acts since his time.Lead Belly appeared as a regular on Alan Lomax and Nicholas Ray's groundbreaking CBS radio show, Back Where I Come From, broadcast nationwide. He also appeared in night clubs with Josh White, becoming a fixture in New York City's surging folk music scene and befriending the likes of Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee, Woody Guthrie, and a young Pete Seeger, all fellow performers on Back Where I Come From. During the first half of the decade he recorded for RCA, the Library of Congress, and for Moe Asch (future founder of Folkways Records), and in 1944 headed to California, where he recorded strong sessions for Capitol Records. Lead Belly was the first American country blues musician to see success in Europe.In 1949 was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease. His final concert was at the University of Texas in a tribute to his former mentor, John A. Lomax, who had died the previous year. Martha also performed at that concert, singing spirituals with her husband.
Lead Belly died later that year in New York City, and was buried in the Shiloh Baptist Church cemetery in Mooringsport, 8 miles (13 km) west of Blanchard, Louisiana, in Caddo Parish.
Paul 'Wine' Jones, blues musician, born July 1 1946; died October 9 2005 .Jones of Belzoni, Mississippi, a small town with a rich blues heritage in the heart of the delta, is a professional welder. He lived with his wife Bessie Mae in a house he purchased with the sweat of his brow. Before becoming a welder, Jones worked in a Delta cotton gin; before that, like many of his Delta neighbors, he worked on a farm. And throughout his adult life, Paul Jones has been a bluesman, known and admired by a number of his fellow Delta musicians but seldom venturing far from home. His style is deeply rooted in the rural blues of the delta, but so distinctly original and idiosyncratic that his sound will not easily be mistaken for that of any other artist. Rock-solid bass-string drones, expansively sonic guitar textures, a seasoning of wah-wah riffs, and a voice that can sound vinegary, molasses-like, or simply, urgently passionate, as the song demands - these are some of the qualities that make Paul Jones a unique and formidable talent.
"I'm from Flora, Mississippi," says Paul, "a little town about eighteen miles from Jackson. My daddy was a guitar player years ago, when I was a little boy. When he used to come home from working on the farm, we'd have frolics, and after he played awhile he'd rest his guitar on the floor and I'd get on it. It came natural to me; nobody taught me, I was just born to it. I started in playing, and by the time I was about thirteen, people would come by and want to take me with 'em to play somewhere out in the country. Before my dad died, four of the children had taken up the guitar, including my sister Jo Ann. She stopped, but I didn't ever stop." Among Paul's other siblings was Casey Jones, who now lives in Chicago where he is one of the most in-demand drummers for blues gigs and recording sessions.
Paul is old enough to have heard some of the Delta's most celebrated blues stylists as a youth, young enough to be a post - B. B. King "modernist" if he'd chosen to go that way. Instead he developed a style that is unabashedly "country" and "in the tradition" but with modern shadings - that wah-wah pedal - and a dexterous manner of subsuming rhythm and lead functions in to a guitar style with the momentum and unpredictability of a runaway steamroller. His first album, Mule, revealed Jones as a sturdy practitioner of the droning, timeless blues played by so many Mississippi musicians, from Kimbrough and Burnside to John Lee Hooker. Cheerfully accentuating his guitar lines with a wah-wah pedal, and tightly accompanied by the incomparable drummer Sam Carr and guitarists Big Jack Johnson and Kenny Brown, Jones turned whiskery old numbers like Diggin' my Potatoes into what his producer Robert Palmer called "progressive country blues".
By the time Jones came to make his second album, Pucker Up Buttercup, in 1999, Fat Possum was less disposed to let its plain old bluesmen make plain old blues records. Matthew Johnson, the label's owner, was no doubt encouraged by the response to projects like A Ass Pocket Of Whiskey, Burnside's 1996 collaboration with the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - the more so, probably, in that it was generally hated by hardline blues fans, a constituency Johnson says he has no interest in pleasing.
Such listeners were hardly like to be assuaged by Pucker Up Buttercup, with its distorted guitar playing, and when presented with a closing track titled Guess I Done Fucked It All Up were all too likely to agree. Jones did not record again.
James Lewis Carter Ford (born in Forest, Mississippi, 1920) is an American blues musician better known by his stage name, T-Model Ford. Unable to remember his exact date of birth, he began his musical career in his early seventies and has continuously recorded for the Fat Possum Records label.
His musical style melds traditional Chicago blues and juke joint blues styles with the rawness of Delta blues and the rebellious attitude of 1970s-style punk. Alternately known as "The Taildragger", Ford, in reference to his age, has been known to tell studio musicians, "T-Model Ford is going to remember you sorry fuckers how it's done. "James Ford grew up working various blue collar jobs as early as his preteen years, such as plowing fields, working at a sawmill, and later in life becoming a lumber company foreman and then a truck driver. However, when reflecting on this time in his life, Ford recalls, "I could really stomp some ass back then. I was a sure-enough-dangerous man. Currently, Ford resides in Greenville, Mississippi.his birth was somewhere between 1921 and 1925. According to his half-sister (still alive in Tennessee), he was born in 1922.According to Ford, he is not retiring. "No way ... only the good lord knows when I'm gonna stop." To that end, Mr Ford has said he has had a dream that he will live to 110. At that rate, he's got over twenty years left.
Robert Pete Williams (March 14, 1914 – December 31, 1980) was an American Louisiana blues musician, based in Louisiana. His music characteristically employs unconventional blues tunings and structures, and his songs are often about the time he served in prison. His song "I've Grown So Ugly" has been covered by Captain Beefheart, on his album Safe as Milk (1967), and by The Black Keys, on Rubber Factory (2004).
Williams was born in Zachary, Louisiana to sharecropping parents, and lived around the Baton Rouge area throughout his life.[1] He was discovered in Angola prison, by ethnomusicologists Dr Harry Oster and Richard Allen, where he was serving a life sentence for shooting a man dead in a local club in 1956, an act which he claimed was in self-defense.“...the most avant-garde blues performer ever recorded. No punk rock band has ever matched the jagged, acerbic fury of the riffs Williams played 35 years ago. No rapper has approached his ability to evoke the torment of life in prison or bend language to cast an eerie spell over a chance encounter with a seductive woman.... He had never been recorded when he was discovered in Angola Penitentiary in Louisiana, convicted of murder. Oster and Allen recorded Williams performing several of his songs about life in prison and pleaded for him to be pardoned. The pardon was partially granted in 1959, when Williams was released, although he could not leave Louisiana until he received a full pardon in 1964. By this time, Williams' music had achieved some favorable word-of-mouth reviews, and he played his first concert outside Louisiana at that year's Newport Folk Festival.
Williams went on to tour the United States, and played a number of concerts with Mississippi Fred McDowell. He continued to play concerts and festivals into the late 1970s when his health began to decline.
His most popular recordings included "Prisoner's Talking Blues" and "Pardon Denied Again".Williams has been inducted into the Louisiana Blues Hall of Fame.
Williams died in Rosedale, Louisiana on 31 December 1980, at the age of 66.
RUBIN ''RUBE'' LACY BIOGRAPHY: (born January 2, 1901, Pelahatchie, Miss.; died c. 1972, Bakersfield, CA)
An important influence on blues great SON HOUSE, Rubin Lacy was part of the Jackson, Mississippi, blues scene in the 1920s -- a scene that also included ISHMAN BRACEY, TOMMY JOHNSON, and CHARLIE MCCOY. LaCY recorded only two sides during his career as a bluesman, but his chiseled vocals and rummaging guitar style played a role in the early development of Delta blues.
Lacy was raised by his grandfather, a preacher. After learning how to play guitar, he left home and worked Mississippi juke joints. He drifted as far north as Illinois in the mid-1920s before returning to the Jackson area, where he frequently performed with the above-mentioned blues musicians and the popular Chatmon family. His two recordings --- ''Mississippi Jail House Groan'' and ''Ham Hound Crave'' --- were cut for Paramount in 1928, although he reputedly played on a number of other recordings made by Mississippi bluesmen. Sometime around 1932 Lacy quit the blues and became a Baptist minister. For the next two decades he preached in Mississippi churches. In the late 1950s Lacy moved to Los Angeles, and later settled in Bakersfield, where he died in or around 1972. -- by Robert Santelli
Tommy Johnson (1896 – November 1, 1956) was an influential American delta blues musician who recorded in the late 1920s, known for his eerie falsetto voice and intricate guitar playing.
Johnson was born near Terry, Mississippi, and moved around 1910 to Crystal Springs where he lived for most of his life. He learned to play the guitar and, by 1914, was supplementing his income by playing at local parties with his brothers Mager and LeDell. In 1916 he married and moved to Webb Jennings' Plantation near Drew, Mississippi, close to the Dockery Plantation. There he met other musicians including Charlie Patton and Willie Brown.By 1920 he had become an alcoholic and itinerant musician, based in Crystal Springs but travelling widely around the South, sometimes accompanied by Papa Charlie McCoy. In 1928 he made his first recordings with McCoy for Victor Records. The recordings included "Canned Heat Blues", in which he sang of drinking methanol from the cooking fuel Sterno. The song features the refrain "canned heat, mama, sure, Lord, killing me." The blues group Canned Heat took their name from this song. Johnson's "Big Road Blues" inspired Canned Heat's song, "On the Road Again". A significantly different version of the song appears as "Canned Heat" on the Big Road Blues album by K. C. Douglas.
He recorded two further sessions, in August 1928 and for Paramount Records in December 1929. He did not record again, mistakenly believing that he had signed away his right to record . This resulted on a legal settlement with The Mississippi Sheiks who had used Johnson's 'Big Road Blues' melody in their enormously successful "[Stop and Listen]". Johnson was party to the copyright settlement, but was too drunk at the time to understand what he had signed to.
Johnson's recordings established him as the premier Delta blues vocalist of his day, with a powerful voice that could go from a growl to a falsetto. He was also an accomplished guitarist. His style influenced later blues singers such as Robert Nighthawk and Howlin' Wolf, whose song "I Asked for Water (She Brought Me Gasoline)" was based on Johnson's "Cool Water Blues". He was a talented composer, blending fragments of folk poetry and personalized lyrics into set guitar accompaniments to craft striking blues compositions such as "Maggie Campbell.To enhance his fame, Johnson cultivated a sinister persona. According to his brother LeDell, he claimed to have sold his soul to the devil in exchange for his mastery of the guitar. This story was later also associated with Robert Johnson, to whom he was unrelated. Tommy Johnson also played tricks with his guitar, playing it between his legs and behind his head, and throwing it in the air while playing.
Johnson remained a popular performer in the Jackson area through the 1930s and 1940s, sometimes performing with Ishman Bracey. He was highly influential on other performers, partly because he was willing to teach his style and his repertoire.He died of a heart attack after playing a party in 1956. He is buried in the Warm Springs Methodist Church Cemetery outside of Crystal Springs, Mississippi. In 2001 a headstone was commissioned through the Mt. Zion Memorial Fund, a Mississippi non-profit corporation, by the family of Tommy Johnson and paid for by musician Bonnie Raitt.
J. B. Hutto (April 26, 1926 - June 12, 1983[1]) was an American blues musician, born Joseph Benjamin Hutto. Hutto was heavily influenced by legendary bluesman Elmore James, and became known for his slide guitar work and declamatory style of singing. He was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame two years after his death.Hutto was born in Blackville, South Carolina, the fifth of seven children. His family moved to Augusta, Georgia, when Hutto was three years old. His father, Calvin, was a preacher, and Hutto, along with his three brothers and three sisters, formed a gospel group called The Golden Crowns, singing in local churches. Hutto's father died in 1949, and the family relocated to Chicago. Hutto served as a draftee in the Korean War in the early 1950s, driving trucks in combat zones.
In Chicago, Hutto took up the drums and played with Johnny Ferguson and his Twisters. He also tried the piano before settling on the guitar, and playing on the streets with percussionist Eddie 'Porkchop' Hines. After adding Joe Custom on second guitar they started playing club gigs, and harmonica player George Mayweather joined after sitting in with the band. Hutto named his band The Hawks, after the wind that blows in Chicago. A recording session in 1954 resulted in the release of two singles on the Chance label, and a second session later the same year, with the band supplemented by pianist Johnny Jones, produced a third.
Later in the 1950s Hutto became disenchanted with music and gave it up to work as an undertaker after a woman broke his guitar over her husband's head one night.[6] He returned to music in the mid 1960s with a new version of the Hawks featuring Herman Hassell on bass and Frank Kirkland on drums.[7] His recording career resumed with, first, a session for Vanguard Records released on the compilation album Chicago/the Blues/Today! Vol. 1, and then albums for Testament and Delmark.[8] After Hound Dog Taylor died in 1975, Hutto took over his band the Houserockers for a time, and in the late 1970s he moved to Boston and recruited a new band which he called the New Hawks, with whom he recorded further studio albums for the Varrick label.J.B.'s music remains the epitome of intense electrified urban Chicago blues, J.B.'s music and influence range from Big Bill Broonzy to Muddy Waters. Moreover, J.B.'s boogie and rollicking style draw comparisons to Fats Domino and Bo Diddley.
J.B. did not possess the musical polish that other musicians had, nor did he have the business acumen or experience the popularity of some of his contemporaries. J.B., did possess an instantly recognizable, moving and emotional slide guitar and vocal that could bring a crowded bar room to a halt.Hutto returned to Illinois in the early 1980s, where he was diagnosed with cancer. He died in 1983, at the age of 57, in Harvey, Illinois. He was interred at the Restvale Cemetery, Alsip, Cook County, Illinois.
In 1985 the Blues Foundation inducted Hutto into its Hall of Fame.[10] His nephew, Lil' Ed Williams (of Lil' Ed and the Blues Imperials) has carried on his legacy, playing and singing in a style very close to his uncle.
Today is The Birthday of Charlie Patton kown as "Charley Patton" considered the father of Delta Blues.
"Charley Patton (May 1, 1891 – April 28, 1934) is best known as an American Delta blues musician. He is considered by many to be the "Father of Delta Blues" and therefore one of the oldest known figures of American popular music. He is credited with creating an enduring body of American music and personally inspiring just about every Delta blues man (Palmer, 1995). Musicologist Robert Palmer considers him among the most important musicians that America produced in the twentieth century. Many sources, including musical releases and his gravestone,[1] spell his name “Charley” even though the musician himself spelled his name "Charlie."Charlie Patton was one of the first mainstream stars of the Delta blues genre. Patton, who was born in Hinds County, Mississippi near Edwards, lived most of his life in Sunflower County, in the Mississippi Delta. Most sources say he was born in 1891, but there is some debate about this, and the years 1887 and 1894 have also been suggested. In 1900, his family moved 100 miles north to the legendary 10,000-acre Dockery Plantation sawmill and cotton farm near Ruleville, Mississippi. It was here that both John Lee Hooker and Howlin' Wolf fell under the Patton spell. It was also here that Robert Johnson played and was given his first guitar.
At Dockery, Charlie fell under the tutelage of Henry Sloan, who had a new, unusual style of playing music which today would be considered very early blues. Charlie followed Henry Sloan around, and, by the time he was about 19, had become an accomplished performer and songwriter in his own right, having already composed "Pony Blues," a seminal song of the era.
Robert Palmer describes Patton as a "jack-of all-trades bluesman" who played "deep blues, white hillbilly songs, nineteenth century ballads, and other varieties of black and white country dance music with equal facility".
He was extremely popular across the Southern United States, and — in contrast to the itinerant wandering of most blues musicians of his time — played scheduled engagements at plantations and taverns. Long before Jimi Hendrix impressed audiences with flashy guitar playing, Patton gained notoriety for his showmanship, often playing with the guitar down on his knees, behind his head, or behind his back. Although Patton was a small man at about 5 foot 5 and 135 pounds, his gravelly voice was rumored to have been loud enough to carry 500 yards without amplification. Patton's gritty bellowing was a major influence on the singing style of his young friend Chester Burnett, who went on to gain fame in Chicago as Howlin' Wolf.Patton's ethnicity is the subject of minor debate. Though he was considered African-American, because of his light complexion there have been rumors that he was Mexican, or possibly a full-blood Cherokee, a theory endorsed by Howlin' Wolf. In actuality, Patton was a mix of white, black, and Cherokee (one of his grandmothers was a full-blooded Cherokee). Patton himself sang in "Down the Dirt Road Blues" of having gone to "the Nation" and "the Territo'" -- meaning the Cherokee Nation portion of the Indian Territory (which became part of the state of Oklahoma in 1907), where a number of Black Indians tried unsuccessfully to claim a place on the tribal rolls and thereby obtain land.
Patton settled in Holly Ridge, Mississippi with his common-law wife and recording partner Bertha Lee in 1933. He died on the Heathman-Dedham plantation near Indianola from heart disease on April 28, 1934 and is buried in Holly Ridge (both towns are located in Sunflower County). A memorial headstone was erected on Patton's grave (the location of which was identified by the cemetery caretaker C. Howard who claimed to have been present at the burial) paid for by musician John Fogerty through the Mt. Zion Memorial Fund in July, 1990."
Elmore James (January 27, 1918 – May 24, 1963) was an American blues guitarist, singer, song writer and band leader. He was known as "The King of the Slide Guitar" and had a unique guitar style, noted for his use of loud amplification and his stirring voice.James was born Elmore Brooks in the old Richland community in Holmes County, Mississippi (not to be confused with two other locations of the same name in Mississippi, one in Humphreys County and the other in Rankin County). He was the illegitimate son of 15-year-old Leola Brooks, a field hand. His father was probably Joe Willie "Frost" James, who moved in with Leola, and so Elmore took this as his surname. His parents adopted an orphaned boy, Robert Holston, at some point.
Elmore began making music at age 12 using a simple one-string instrument ('diddley bow' or 'jitterbug') strung up on a shack wall. As a teen he was playing at local dances under the names "Cleanhead" and "Joe Willie James."
Other well-known musicians of that time with whom he played included the "second"' Sonny Boy Williamson and the legendary Robert Johnson. (There is a dispute as to whether Robert Johnson or Elmore wrote James's trademark song, "Dust My Broom".[1]. Elmore was still under 20 when Johnson had recorded his version of the song.) Although Johnson died in 1938, James (like many other musicians) was strongly influenced by him, and also by Kokomo Arnold and Tampa Red. Elmore recorded several of Tampa Red's songs, and even inherited from his band two of his famous "Broomdusters", 'Little' Johnny Jones (piano) and Odie Payne (drums).
An important side to Elmore's character which may have hastened his demise was his lifelong taste for, and manufacture of, moonshine whiskey, to which he was introduced at an early age. Alcohol killed his bandmates and friends Willie Love and Johnny Jones at an early age, and probably others too. His regular rhythm guitarist Homesick James maintained his longevity was due to his not partaking of the heavy drinking sessions after — and often during — gigs, a refusal that was unpopular with the rest of the band. Elmore was also reportedly an extremely fast driver who also loved hunting with guns and dogs down in Mississippi, whence he would head off for protracted periods.
During World War II James joined the United States Navy, was promoted to coxswain and took part in the invasion of Guam against the Japanese. Upon his discharge, Elmore returned to central Mississippi and eventually settled in Canton with his adopted brother Robert Holston, it was at this time he learned that he had a serious heart condition. Working in Robert's electrical shop he devised his unique electric sound, using parts from the shop and an unusual placement of two D'Armond pick ups.[1] He began recording with Trumpet Records in nearby Jackson in January 1951, first as sideman to the second Sonny Boy Williamson and also to their mutual friend Wille Love and possibly others, then debuting as a session leader in August with "Dust My Broom". It was a surprise R&B hit in 1952 and turned James into a star. He then broke his contract with Trumpet Records to sign up with the Bihari Brothers through Ike Turner (who played guitar and piano on a couple of his early Bihari recordings). James' "I Believe" was another hit a year later. During the 1950s he recorded for the Bihari Brothers' Flair Records, Meteor Records and Modern Records labels, as well as for Chess Records and Mel London's Chief Records for whom "It Hurts Me Too" was a hit. His backing musicians were known as the Broomdusters. In 1959 he began recording what are perhaps his best sides for Bobby Robinson's Fire Records label. These include "The Sky Is Crying" (credited to Elmo James and His Broomdusters), "My Bleeding Heart", "Stranger Blues", "Look On Yonder Wall", "Done Somebody Wrong", and "Shake Your Moneymaker", all of which are among the most famous of blues recordings.James played a wide variety of blues (which often crossed over into other styles of music) similar to that of Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf and some of B. B. King's work, but distinguished by the powerful sound coming from a modified hollow-bodied traditional acoustic guitar. He most often played using a slide, but on several recordings he plays without. His voice and style was as instantly recognizable as B. B.'s, Muddy's and Wolf's and, until he fell afoul of the Chicago union, he and his Broomdusters were as popular in the Chicago clubs as any of these musicians' bands. Muddy Waters took the Belgian blues fan (Georges Adins) to see Elmore play in Chicago in 1959, Adins recalled,
"Elmore will always remain the most exciting, dramatic blues singer and guitarist that I've ever had a chance to see perform in the flesh. On our way we listened to him on the radio as Big Bill Hill ... was broadcasting direct from that place. I was burning to see Elmore James and before we even pushed open the door of the club, we could hear Elmore's violent guitar sound. Although the place was overcrowded, we managed to find a seat close to the bandstand and the blues came falling down on me as it had never done before. Watching Elmore sing and play, backed by a solid blues band (Homesick James, J.T. Brown, Boyd Atkins and Sam Cassell) made me feel real fine. Wearing thick glasses, Elmore's face always had an expressive and dramatic look, especially when he was real gone on the slow blues. Singing with a strong and rough voice, he really didn't need a mike. On such slow blues as "I'm Worried - "Make My Dreams Come True" - "It Hurts Me", his voice reached a climax and created a tension that was unmistakably the down and out blues. Notwithstanding that raw voice, Elmore sang his blues with a particular feeling, an emotion and depth that showed his country background. His singing was... fed, reinforced by his own guitar accompaniment which was as rough, violent and expressive as was his voice. Using the bottleneck technique most of the time, Elmore really let his guitar sound as I had never heard a guitar sound before. You just couldn't sit still! You had to move..."
Most electric slide guitar players will admit to the massive influence of James' style.[citation needed] He was also a major influence on successful blues guitarists as Homesick James (Elmore's older cousin who was a member of Elmore's band The Broomdusters since 1957 and featured on many of his recordings), John Littlejohn, Hound Dog Taylor, J.B. Hutto and many others. He also influenced many rock guitarists such as The Rolling Stones' Brian Jones and Fleetwood Mac's Jeremy Spencer.Elmore James' songs "Done Somebody Wrong" and "One Way Out" were covered by The Allman Brothers Band, who cited him as a major influence. James was also covered by blues-rock band Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble many times in concert. The most famous of these covers is one that came by an indirect route: James' fellow bluesman Albert King recorded a cover of "The Sky Is Crying", and Stevie Ray Vaughan copied King's version of the song. That song was also covered by George Thorogood on his second album, Move It On Over and by Eric Clapton .Perhaps the most famous guitarist who admired Elmore James was Jimi Hendrix. Early in Hendrix's career, he styled himself variously as 'Maurice James' and subsequently as 'Jimmy James'. This, according to former band mate and recording partner Lonnie Youngblood, was a tribute to Elmore James.
Elmore James died of his third heart attack in Chicago, Illinois in 1963, just prior to a tour of Europe with that year's American Folk Blues Festival. He is buried in the Newport Baptist Church Cemetery, Ebenezer, Holmes County, Mississippi.
Weldon H. Philip Bonner, better known as Juke Boy Bonner (22 March 1932 — 29 June 1978[1]) was an American blues singer, harmonica player, and guitarist. He was influenced by Lightnin' Hopkins, Jimmy Reed, and Slim Harpo. He described the bleak prospects of black urban existence in songs like "Life is a Nightmare", "Struggle Here in Houston" and "Going Back to the Country", accompanying himself on guitar, harmonica and drums in the self sufficient one-man band mode of Joe Hill Louis and Dr. Ross.[2]Born in Bellville, Texas, Bonner wp<
as one of nine children; his parents died while he was very young, and he was raised by a neighbour's family, and later, he moved in with his older sister in 1945. At the age of twelve he taught himself the guitar.[1] He gained the nickname "Juke Boy" as a youth, as he frequently sang in local bars accompanied by the juke box. Starting a musical career as teenager, he won the first prize at local disc jockey Trummie Cain's weekly talent show at the Lincoln Theater in Houston, Texas in 1948. Through this he secured a 15 minute radio slot on a show operated by record retailer Henry Atlas. After having three children with his wife, she left him to look after the children by himself.
Between 1954 and 1957 he recorded several singles for the Oakland, California based Irma record label, but not all were released at the time. In 1960 he recorded again, this time for the Goldband Records, Storyville Records, and Jan & Dill Records labels. In 1963 he was diagnosed with a large stomach ulcer, and had to have almost half of his stomach removed in surgery. The shock of this operation, plus the social climate of the times (which included civil rights riots and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy) led Bonner to begin writing poetry, some of which was published in the Forward Times weekly newspaper. Recovering from surgery, Bonner worked as an RCA record distributor in Houston. Once his strength returned he began playing gigs again in the local area.
In 1967 Bonner recorded his first album for the Flyright label. Chris Strachwitz's Arhoolie label released two albums, I'm Going Back to The Country (1968) and The Struggle (1969) (Arhoolie would later issue some of Bonner's unreleased 1967-1974 recordings on 2003's Ghetto Poet). Bonner recorded mostly original song material through his recording career. He was a guest at the Ann Arbor Blues Festival, the American Folk Blues Festival, and the Montreux Blues and Rock Festival. In 1972 he released an LP for Sonet Records, and in 1975 another one for the Houston based Home Cooking Records label. However, Bonner was not able to support himself from his music due to little demand for his work. Although he would continue to play and record sporadically, he had no choice but to take a minimum wage job at a chicken processing plant in Houston.[1]
Bonner died in his apartment in 1978, aged forty-six, of cirrhosis of the liver. Juke Boy Bonner mp3's
Willie Brown (August 6, 1900 – December 30, 1952[1]) was an American delta blues guitarist and singer.Born in Clarksdale, Mississippi,[1] Brown played with such notables as Charley Patton, Son House, and Robert Johnson. He was not known to be a self-promoting frontman, preferring to "second" (accompany) other musicians. Little is known for certain of the man whom Robert Johnson called "my friend-boy, Willie Brown" (in his prophetic "Cross Road Blues") and whom Johnson indicated should be notified in event of his death. Brown is heard with Patton on the Paramount label sessions of 1930, playing "M & O Blues," and "Future Blues."[1] Apart from playing with Son House and Charlie Patton it has also been said that he played with artists such as Luke Thomson and Thomas "Clubfoot" Coles. At least four other songs he recorded for Paramount have never been found.
"Rowdy Blues", a 1929 song credited to Kid Bailey, is disputed to have Brown on backup, or Brown himself using the name of Kid Bailey. Willie Brown does his song "Future Blues" on the album Son House & The Great Delta Blues Singers (1994), recorded between 1928 and 1930, on the Document Records label.
David Evans has reconstructed the early biography of a Willie Brown living in Drew, Mississippi, until 1929. He was married by 1911 to a proficient guitarist named Josie Mills. He is recalled as singing and playing guitar with Charley Patton and others in the neighbourhood of Drew.[2] Informants with conflicting memories led Gayle Dean Wardlow and Steve Calt to conclude that this was a different Willie Brown.[3] Evans rejects this, believing that the singing and guitar style of the 1931 recordings is clearly in the tradition of other performers from Drew such as Charley Patton, Tommy Johnson, Kid Bailey, Howling Wolf and artists recorded non-commercially.
Alan Lomax added further confusion in 1993, suggesting that the William Brown he recorded in Arkansas in 1942 was the same man as the Paramount artist.[4] The recording was for a joint project between Fisk University and the Library of Congress documenting the music of Coahoma County, Mississippi in 1941 and 1942. Writing over fifty years later, Lomax forgot that he had actually recorded Willie the previous summer with Son House, Fiddlin' Joe Martin and Leroy Williams. Brown played second guitar on three performances by the whole band, and recorded one solo, "Make Me A Pallet On The Floor".The later biography is clear. Willie Brown, the Paramount artist, lived in Robinsonville, Mississippi from 1929 and moved to Lake Cormorant, Mississippi by 1935. He performed occasionally with Charley Patton, and continually with Son House until his death. After this, House ceased performing until his "rediscovery" in 1964.
Brown died in Tunica, Mississippi in 1952 at the age of 52.
* Born: August 16, 1915, Tyler, TX
* Died: May 30, 1976, Dallas, TX
* Active: '40s, '50s, '60s
* Genres: Blues
* Instrument: Vocals, Guitar
* Representative Albums: "Lil' Son Jackson," "Blues Come to Texas," "Rockin' and Rollin', Vol. 1: 1948-1950"
Biography
Lil' Son Jackson was a stylistic throwback from the moment he first turned up during the immediate postwar era. Born Melvin Jackson, he was a Texas country bluesman of the highest order whose rustic approach appealed wholeheartedly to the early-'50s blues marketplace. His dad loved blues, while his mother played gospel guitar. Their son's initial experience came with a spiritual aggregation called the Blue Eagle Four. A mechanic by trade, he served in the Army during World War II before giving the idea of being a professional blues musician a shot. In 1946, he shipped off a demo to Bill Quinn, who owned a Houston diskery called Gold Star Records. Quinn was suitably impressed, inking Jackson and enjoying a national R&B hit, "Freedom Train Blues," in 1948 for his modest investment. It would prove Jackson's only national hit, although his 1950-1954 output for Imperial Records must have sold consistently, judging from how many sides the L.A. firm issued by the Texas guitarist. Jackson's best Imperial work was recorded solo. Later attempts to squeeze his style into a small band format (his idea, apparently) tended to emphasize his timing eccentricities. His "Rockin' and Rollin'," cut in December of 1950, became better known through a raft of subsequent covers as "Rock Me Baby." He gave up the blues during the mid-'50s after an auto wreck, resuming work as a mechanic. Arhoolie Records boss Chris Strachwitz convinced Jackson to cut an album in 1960.Jackson had something of a second career when Chris Strachwitz of Arhoolie located him during the summer of 1960 in Dallas and convinced Jackson to try recording once again. From these sessions came nearly two dozen songs in the traditional Texas blues style that seems to be an offshoot from the music of the Mississippi delta region. Among the tracks included in this reissue are 'Blues Come to Texas,' 'West Dallas Blues,' 'I Walked from Dallas,' and, in something of a stretch, 'Cairo Blues,' a particularly fine performance. This is a fine collection.” Jackson died May 30, 1976, in Dallas, TX, from cancer. ~ Bill Dahl, All Music Guide
Answers.com
A traditionalist who was a staunch member of the Texas country blues movement of the late '40s and early '50s (along with the likes of his cousin Lightnin' Hopkins, Lil' Son Jackson, and Smokey Hogg), guitarist Frankie Lee Sims developed a twangy, ringing electric guitar style that was irresistible on fast numbers and stung hard on the downbeat stuff.
Sims picked up a guitar when he was 12 years old. By then, he had left his native New Orleans for Marshall, TX. After World War II ended, he played local dances and clubs around Dallas and crossed paths with T-Bone Walker. Sims cut his first 78s for Herb Rippa's Blue Bonnet Records in 1948 in Dallas, but didn't taste anything resembling regional success until 1953, when his bouncy "Lucy Mae Blues" did well down south.
The guitarist recorded fairly prolifically for Los Angeles-based Specialty into 1954, then switched to Johnny Vincent's Ace label (and its Vin subsidiary) in 1957 to cut the mighty rockers "Walking with Frankie" and "She Likes to Boogie Real Low," both of which pounded harder than a ballpeen hammer.
Sims claimed to play guitar on King Curtis's 1962 instrumental hit "Soul Twist" for Bobby Robinson's Enjoy label, but that seems unlikely. It is assumed that he recorded for Robinson in late 1960 (the battered contents of three long-lost acetates emerged in 1985 on the British Krazy Kat label).
Sims mostly missed out on the folk-blues revival of the early '60s that his cousin Lightnin' Hopkins cashed in on handily. When he died at age 53 in Dallas of pneumonia, Sims was reportedly in trouble with the law due to a shooting incident and had been dogged by drinking problems. ~ Bill Dahl, All Music Guide. Similar Artists:
Andrew "Smokey" Hogg, Melvin "Lil' Son" Jackson, Forest City Joe Influenced By:
Lightnin' Hopkins, T-Bone Walker, Blind Lemon Jefferson, John Lee Hooker
* Born: April 30, 1917, New Orleans, LA
* Died: May 10, 1970, Dallas, TX
* Active: '40s, '50s, '60s
* Genres: Blues
* Instrument: Vocals, Guitar
* Representative Albums: "Lucy Mae Blues," "Walking with Frankie"
* Representative Songs: "Lucy Mae Blues," "She Likes to Boogie Real Low," "Walkin' With Frankie"
Blind" Lemon Jefferson (September 24, 1893 – December 1929) was an influential blues singer and guitarist from Texas. He was one of the most popular blues singers of the 1920s, and has been titled "Father of the Texas Blues."His musical style was individualistic, and Jefferson's singing and self-accompaniment were distinctive as a result of his high-pitched voice and originality on the guitar.[6] He was not influential on some younger blues singers of his generation, as they did not seek to imitate him as they did other commercially successful artists.[7] However, later blues and rock and roll musicians attempted to imitate both his songs and his musical style.Jefferson was born blind near Coutchman, Texas in Freestone County, near present-day Wortham, Texas.[3] Jefferson was one of eight children born to sharecroppers Alex and Clarissa Jefferson.[3] Disputes regarding his exact birth date derive from contradictory census records and draft registration records. By 1900, the family was farming southeast of Streetman, Texas, and Lemon Jefferson's birth date is indicated as September 1893 in the 1900 census.Jefferson began playing the guitar in his early teens, and soon after he began performing at picnics and parties.[3] He also became a street musician, playing in East Texas towns in front of barbershops and on corners.By the early 1910s, Jefferson began traveling frequently to Dallas, where he met and played with fellow blues musician Leadbelly.[13] In Dallas, Jefferson was one of the earliest and most prominent figures in the blues movement developing in Dallas' Deep Ellum area. Jefferson likely moved to Deep Ellum in a more permanent fashion by 1917, where he met Aaron Thibeaux Walker, also known as T-Bone Walker.[13] Jefferson taught Walker the basics of blues guitar, in exchange for Walker's occasional services as a guide.in December 1925 or January 1926, he was taken to Chicago, Illinois, to record his first tracks. Uncharacteristically, Jefferson's first two recordings from this session were gospel songs ("I Want to be like Jesus in my Heart" and "All I Want is that Pure Religion"), released under the name Deacon L. J. Bates. This led to a second recording session in March 1926. His first releases under his own name, "Booster Blues" and "Dry Southern Blues," were hits; this led to the release of the other two songs from that session, "Got the Blues" and "Long Lonesome Blues," which became a runaway success, with sales in six figures. He recorded about 100 tracks between 1926 and 1929; 43 records were issued.Jefferson is known to have done an unusual amount of traveling for the time in the American South, which is reflected in the difficulty of pigeonholing his music into one regional category.Jefferson had an intricate and fast style of guitar playing and a particularly high-pitched voice. He was a founder of the Texas blues sound and an important influence on other blues singers and guitarists, including Lead Belly and Lightnin' Hopkins.
He sticks to no musical conventions, varying his riffs and rhythm and singing complex and expressive lyrics in a manner exceptional at the time for a "simple country blues singer."Jefferson was reputedly unhappy with his royalties (although Williams said that Jefferson had a bank account containing as much as $1500). In 1927, when Williams moved to OKeh Records, he took Jefferson with him, and OKeh quickly recorded and released Jefferson's "Matchbox Blues" backed with "Black Snake Moan," which was to be his only OKeh recording, probably because of contractual obligations with Paramount. Jefferson's two songs released on Okeh have considerably better sound quality than on his Paramount records at the time. When he had returned to Paramount a few months later, "Matchbox Blues" had already become such a hit that Paramount re-recorded and released two new versions, under producer Arthur Laibly.In 1927, Jefferson recorded another of his now classic songs, the haunting "See That My Grave Is Kept Clean" (once again using the pseudonym Deacon L. J. Bates) along with two other uncharacteristically spiritual songs, "He Arose from the Dead" and "Where Shall I Be." Of the three, "See That My Grave Is Kept Clean" became such a big hit that it was re-recorded and re-released in 1928. Jefferson died in Chicago in December 1929. The cause of death is unknown, and though rumors swirled that a jealous lover poisoned his coffee, a more likely scenario is that he died due to a heart attack after being disoriented during a snowstorm (another scenario is that he froze to death). The book "Tolbert's Texas" claims that he was killed while being robbed of a large royalty cash payment by a guide taking him to Union Station to catch a train home to Texas. Paramount Records paid for the return of his body to Texas by train, accompanied by pianist Will Ezell. Jefferson was buried at Wortham Negro Cemetery (now Wortham Black Cemetery). Far from his grave being kept clean, it was unmarked until 1967, when a Texas Historical Marker was erected in the general area of his plot, the precise location being unknown. By 1996, the cemetery and marker were in poor condition, but a new granite headstone was erected in 1997. In 2007 the cemetery's name was changed to Blind Lemon Memorial Cemetery . Blind Lemon Jefferson is the featured musician on a State of Texas license plate. B. B. King has always maintained that Jefferson was a huge influence on his singing and guitar playing. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame listed one song by Blind Lemon Jefferson of the 500 songs that shaped rock and roll.
