Rev. KM Williams CountryBluesTown

Robert Belfour - The Lone Wolf

2012-01-19T23:09:00.000-08:00

But at the time I couldn’t find a handy retort, a concrete example of such an accomplished player, who, for some rea-son, slipped through the cracks; that is, until I found Robert “Wolfman” Belfour, not long ago. Now, it’s a fact that he has had some notoriety of late, having recorded a couple of fine albums for Fat Possum. But this reclusive and reluctant Delta blues guitarist probably would have never been discovered had he not, at his wife’s urging, gone to downtown Memphis and played gratis in Handy Park. Otherwise, he’d still be home on his front porch picking his blues in total obscurity. And there must be others out there just like him who never had the temerity to make a public appearance. Thankfully, someone, before it was too late, found this diamond in the rough.The always impeccably attired Robert Belfour, although he plays in a totally different genre - Delta blues - often with a slide, reminds me quite a bit about our recently dearly departed national treasure of bluesman, the Piedmont blues singer/guitarist, John Jackson. Preferring to just play rather than put on a show, both artists are/were pictures of intense concentration, with eyes closed, deeply focused and immersed in the songs. Serious and business-like, they go about the job at hand, caring much less if they display a dynamic stage presence--their style--than conveying the substance of the music itself. And both, espousing an open tuning technique, prefer to play solo, since the two, although unable to read music, could provide all the essentials. “You know I play by single notes and right along with them the rhythm and bass myself. Then, I change when I want to, making it hard for anyone to follow me,” said Robert. A good example of his adherence to this individualistic approach was recently when he appeared with fellow Delta bluesman (with whom he sometimes travels in tandem as part of a Fat Possum promotional tour), James “T-Model” Ford, at Baltimore’s Ottobar, a spacious uptown room normally catering to “alternative bands.” During his set, Robert could certainly have availed himself of “Spam,” Ford’s longtime, highly demonstrative percussionist, who probably wouldn’t have minded, but, instead chose to go on, as usual, unaccompanied. And that is why, along with his inclination for solitary travel, I suggested the moniker “Lone Wolf” rather than “Wolfman.” But more about his colorful nickname later.
Robert Belfour’s story begins with his birth on September 11, 1940 in Holly Springs, MS, and it is a tale not unlike a lot of those classic blues biographies that commenced in Mississippi during the tail end of the Great Depression. Of humble origins, the Belfour family lived in a wooden “plank” house without the modern conveniences that we take for granted - electricity (which necessitated oil lamps and wood-burning stoves) and running water. “I guess we were a little better off than other folk because my father wasn’t a sharecropper. He actually rented a parcel of land from the Hurdle cotton plantation a few miles away,” said Robert. From most accounts, his father was quite a musician and spent a lot of time honing his prodigious skills on wooden guitar which had a metal cone-type device, a resonator, for amplifying the sound. “It was old timey blues he was playing, like way back when Blind Lemon Jefferson and Charley Patton were around,” he said. But, nonetheless, the young lad was hooked and hounded his father for the opportunity to try it on his own. Finally, he relented when his son was but seven years old. “When I first tried to play the regular way, it was too large to handle; so I had to put it on my lap and strum it like that,” added Robert.
In 1953, his dad and mother separated and he moved with the latter and two brothers to Red Banks, in the “hill country” a few miles from Highway 78. Because even the new home was not wired, his mother bought a battery-powered radio to entertain the household and it soon became a source of inspiration to the young Robert, just on the verge of adolescence. “Yeah, it opened a new world to me. By that time, blues was on the air from Memphis and we got WDIA with disk jockeys like Rufus Thomas and Nat D. Williams. B.B. King also had a show sponsored by Hadacol and there was gospel music on Sundays,” said Robert.

WDIA at 1070 AM, which billed itself as “America’s first black radio station” actually began as a weakly transmitted C&W venture (730 AM) in 1947. But when its white ownership, including principals John Pepper and Bert Ferguson, after a trial run, discovered that it could tap into a huge Afro-American market, the station soon applied to the FCC to increase its power to the maximum allowed 50,000 watts. For optimal effect, its antenna was beamed directly south to the Mississippi Delta and the Gulf Coast. In fact, so strong was its signal, that WDIA claimed to have reached as much as 10% of the black population of the entire nation.

At about the time that Robert Belfour began listening to clear channel WDIA (1954), some of the original disk jockeys there had already achieved a legendary status (and following), such as the aforementioned Nat D. Williams, the emcee of “Tan Town Jubilee,” and Rufus Thomas, who presided over both the 15-minute “Sepia Swing Club” and the two-hour, late night show, “Hoot ‘N’ Holler.” This was the same Rufus Thomas who went on to record with Sun records - “Bearcat” - and later Stax -“Walking the Dog.” Although B.B. King shamelessly plugged the folk remedy Hadacol during his daily, 15-minute segment, the station’s bread and butter commodity was actually another similar cure-all of dubious repute - Pepticol. A good portion of Sunday was devoted to spiritual music and was invariably the domain of former blues singer, the now-Reverend Dwight “Gatemouth” Moore. Oddly enough, in the early days of this trailblazing initiative, there was a Baltimore connection, a DJ, the irrepressible motor mouth, Maurice “Hot Rod” Hulbert, who later in the mid-50s moved over to Charm City’s WEBB (1360 AM) and who was forever immortalized by Savoy records honker and ubiquitous session man, Hal Singer, with his eponymous instrumental in 1955.

Suffice it to say that the newly emerging, electrified crop of second generation blues figures regularly broadcast over WDIA, including Howlin’ Wolf (Chester Burnett) and Muddy Waters (McKinley Morganfield), had a profound effect on the young Robert Belfour and he became thoroughly familiar with their repertoire. Although now he was without a guitar, one song in particular, “Baby, Please Don’t Go,” impelled him to take matters into his own hands, much to the chagrin of his mother. “I began pulling the metal wire off the bails of hay and nailing them up on the sides of the house, plucking them like an instrument,” he said.

However, he did not have continue very much longer in this makeshift manner, as his father passed away shortly thereafter, leaving his trusty guitar to his son. “I worked hard as a farmer. But it seemed that with every spare moment I was trying to teach myself something. I learned how to find and make the chords and how to tune it. And once I was able to do it right, I never forgot it. Even today, when I take a break from it for a while, I can just pick it up without skipping a beat. But back then, I just couldn’t let it alone,” Robert asserted.

In 1960, tough times again struck the Delta and this new recession almost rivaled that of the Great Depression. His brother found his now newly married sibling employment as a laborer for the Choctaw Construction Company (for which he would toil off and on for 35 years) based in Memphis, a job which entailed a brutal daily commute of one hundred miles, round trip. “In those days, you had to do what you had to do to survive,” he said.

But eventually the grind exacted its toll, prompting Robert Belfour and his bride, Norene, to move to Memphis in 1968. Ironically, just after settling there, he was laid off and had to accept a succession of odd jobs, including security guard and truck driver of materials to building sites. Against Robert’s wishes, his chronically ill wife in the late 70s began working as a cook at Ronnie Grisanti & Sons restaurant at Marshall Avenue and Union, the same street where nearby was situated the famed Sun Studio of the recently late Sam C. Phillips. When Grisanti’s later relocated to historic Beale St., she also tagged along. It was there that she noticed that a number of bluesmen, like harp player Blind Mississippi Morris and the mysterious guitarist Uncle Ben and others, some of decidedly lesser skills than her husband, were plying their trade as street singers. Returning home many an evening, she prodded her husband to do the same, but for a long period, the shy and retiring guitarist gently rebuffed her entreaties. It wasn’t until 1981 that Robert Belfour mustered enough courage to demonstrate his remarkable guitar work to the public, first at Handy Park. There, after hearing his plaintive howls, an admiring German tour guide christened him “Wolfman,” a name which, the more he thought about it, seemed to suit him. And subsequently, he attracted the attention of Joe Savage, who was instrumental in introducing him to the Handy Museum on 4th St, where he became fixture playing concerts.

Moreover, he became (and still is) an institution on Beale St., itself, performing at the Rum Boogie, the Hard Rock Café, and B.B. King’s Club. “I remember entertaining indoors at the Blues City Café [138 Beale St.] one cold December day and hearing the news about the death of Albert King [December 21, 1992], who had played there just one week before me. It was such a shock to realize that he was gone,” said Robert. Not only Beale St. beckoned but other gigs about town. “A fan of mine in a rock band introduced me to Murphy’s uptown [Murphy’s Public House at 1589 Madison Avenue] and I wound up being there on Fridays and Saturdays for about ten years [late 80s-90s],” said Robert.

Needless to say, such an extraordinary talent as Robert Belfour could not long escape the discerning ears of local record producers, including that of Dr. Dave Evans of Memphis State University, who took an early interest in this new kid on the block of Beale St. Longtime musicologist Evans had lovingly recorded (even singles) many of the obscure musicians of the Delta region on his High Water label in the 70s and 80s, a project supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts in Washington, D.C. Some of these indigenous artists who probably would never have been approached by a major label, included harmonica player, Hammie Nixon, The Hollywood All Stars, Little Applewhite, guitarists Jessie Mae Hemphill and Rainie Burnett, saxophonist Raymond & Lillie Hill, the Fieldstones, and guitarist Junior Kimbrough, the latter who “woodshedded” with Robert Belfour on many occasion, before the latter’s “coming out.”

Dave Evans, assuming the role of benefactor and mentor, first introduced Robert Belfour to the listening audience of Memphis during his regular 7-9 p.m. time slot over WEVL FM, a station still noted for its blues programming. And later he served as an intermediary, securing for Robert a junket abroad to Germany in the early 90s under the auspices of heralded Teutonic booking agent, Ewe Gleisch, who accompanied the then-novice voyager to all his gigs. It would be the first of many trips to Europe, which have included Switzerland, France (Paris), and Scandinavia - Norway (2002). “I’ve gotten kind of independent over the years and even drive myself to the airport and leave my van on the lot if I’m not gone too long a time,” said Robert, who lost his beloved wife a couple of years ago.

The dawn of the 90s also began a flurry of recording. In Memphis, Dave Evans, perhaps to take advantage of Robert’s triumphant tour “over the pond,” taped an album’s worth of material which he leased to the German record label, Hot Fox. Entitled The Spirit of Blues Lives On, it sold moderately well, especially overseas, but Robert is still disappointed that it never saw the light of day stateside. Another 90s project, which included Carl “Blue Suede Shoes” Perkins and begun at the celebrated Sun Studio was an album for none other than Johnny Rivers, the same stellar guitarist who had such runaway chartmaking hits in the 60s as “Memphis,” “Poor Side Of Town,” “Secret Agent Man,” and “Summer Rain,” all on Imperial. When asked how he got embroiled in an undertaking involving such diverse artists, Robert seemed puzzled as to an explanation. “We finished it at B.B. King’s place on Beale. I guess it was supposed to be a blues album. And wouldn’t you know it. I never even got a copy,” he said dejectedly.

But recognition was just around the corner. Now, quite established as a local legend, Robert Belfour was brought to the attention of Oxford, MS - headquartered Fat Possum, a still up-and-coming blues label, which specializes in living music from this region (in fact still releasing vinyl singles on its For The Love Of Jesus subsidiary), including Cedell Davis, Junior Kimbrough, Robert Cage, the Jelly Roll Kings (Frank Frost, Big Jack Johnson, and Sam Carr), and the aforementioned T-Model Ford, as well as blues patriarchs who have passed on - Furry Lewis, Robert Pete Williams, Scott Dunbar, and Mississippi Fred McDowell. Lately, Fat Possum has branched out to embrace even rockabilly (Hasil Adkins) and soul (Solomon Burke).
By 2002, Robert had recorded his first domestic release for Fat Possum, What’s Wrong With You (80336) and its reception was so favorable that Pushin’ My Luck (80369) followed quickly on its heels in April of the very next year. With a major label backing him, blues fans are beginning to stand up and take notice. But aside from national distribution, Robert attributes his success as a bluesman to two main factors, the first being originality and the second his style. “I try not to rehash all the old songs, especially when I go into the studio. There are only two songs on both of these albums combined that anyone has ever done previously - ‘Done Got Old,’ which I used to practice with Junior Kimbrough and ‘Black Mattie’,” said Robert. In such up-tempo numbers like the latter, Robert plays in an unusual fashion for the genre. “I call it cross tuning. It gives the song a different twist, Spanish-like. Don’t ask me how I picked it up. But it sure seems to work with the listeners,” he added.

Talking to this gentleman of the old school recently, I detected a little regret in his voice, perhaps a hint of self-reproach that he didn’t make his entrance a little bit sooner. But he is no longer going to let any grass grow beneath his feet. “I’ll even book myself if I have to,” he said, accepting any and all offers to appear, no matter how small the venue in order to “get out there.” And true to his word, even as this article was being written, he had performed at the Fort Lauderdale Blues Festival and flown to London for just one gig, opening for Koko Taylor. But Montana, as a destination, was sure a surprise to me and I tried to envision him teaching a bunch of rough and rowdy rodeo hounds the rudiments of Delta guitar licks. It must be true then that even cowboys get the blues. For if he can make a just a few converts in this stronghold of Bud-swilling, country line dancing rednecks, just think how much easier his task will be to make believers of the rest of us. And of them you can count me first. Larry Benicewicz

Ben Prestage

2012-01-03T06:54:00.000-08:00

“When my father was growing up in Mississippi,” states Ben, “ they never had running water and the only electricity was one light bulb that hung from the ceiling, but they had it better than some of their neighbors, because they didn’t have dirt floors. I grew up in rural Florida, on a 14-mile-long dirt road, near the headwaters of the Everglades. It was 7 miles either direction to the nearest paved road, and when you got to pavement, you still weren't near a town. It was panther, gator, and cottonmouth country. Out there, there was only one kind of music in the house. Whether it was being played on an instrument, or on a recording, it was Blues.

“One day though, in my early teens, I went to help a neighbor build a chicken-coop on his property. When we went inside to eat lunch, I asked him about a banjo I saw in the corner. He picked it up and I heard Bluegrass music for the first time. He was from a musical family and learned old-time banjo from his father from the South Ohio/North Kentucky hills. He lived half a mile away, but it was so quiet out there, you could hear that banjo all the way to my house, if he was on his porch and I was on mine.. He made homemede wine with my dad and when he’d come over, he’d bring his banjo and show me how to pick with my fingers instead of a plectrum.”

Later while living in Memphis, Prestage became a busker (street performer) on historic Beale Street. This is where he perfected his drum-kit. "I played out there a few times with nothing but a guitar and my voice. Once people heard me they liked it, but it was hard to get them on my side of the street with all the other music going on down there. There were some other guys out there who played drums with their feet, and they always got people's attention. I started playing drums with my feet as an attention grabber but soon found out that the drums played with foot pedals actually enhaced my music dramatically. Not only were people listening and buyin' discs, they were now dancing and hollerin' to boot. Now I am to the point where, if you close your eyes, you would think there was a professional drummer with a full-size drumkit behind me. I learned alot from the guys I shared the street with, including John Lowe, (inventor of the Lowebow, a type of diddley-bow that I play), Robert Belfour, and Richard Johnston." Ben returned to Memphis over the next few years for the International Blues Challenge (the world's largest gathering of Blues musicians) and within three consecutive years took he 4th, 3rd, and 2nd place. He is also the only two-time recipient of the Lyon/Pitchford Award for "Best Diddley-Bow Player." Ben's interesting approach to instrumentation, (fingerstyle guitar, harmonica, banjo, lap-steel, fiddle, resonator guitar, foot-drums, vocals, and his award-winning original songwriting (recipient of "The Most Unique Performer" at "The Song- writers' Showcase of America") has earned him invitations to perform across North America, Europe, and as far as North Africa. All awards aside, he has proven himself, through his live performances, to be the future of American Blues, Roots Music, Americana and is one of today’s most talented outsider.

Thomas Shaw - Friend of Blind Lemon Jefferson

2011-12-14T10:06:00.000-08:00

Thomas Edgar Shaw(March 4, 1908 – February 24, 1977) was born in Brenham, Texas, and as a young man he worked with Blind Lemon Jefferson, J. T. Smith and Ramblin' Thomas.Tom Shaw spent about five years on the Texas house party circuit in the 1920's and early 1930's before moving to San Diego in 1934. Shaw met many great Texas bluesmen including Smokey Hogg, T-Bone Walker, Mance Lipscomb, Blind Willie Johnson, Ramblin' Thoms, JT "Funny Papa" Smith and Blind Lemon Jefferson who he was clearly a disciple of. He met Jefferson in Waco, Texas in 1926 or 27. JT "Funny Papa" Smith offered to let Shaw play on one of his records in 1931 but Smith was sent to jail on a murder charge. In the 1960's and 70s he recorded for the Advent, Blue Goose and Blues Beacon labels.He recorded "Hey Mr. Nixon" and "Martin Luther King". Thomas Shaw passed away during open heart surgery in February 1977.

Gary Clark Jr. - The Future of the Blues

2011-12-13T08:09:00.000-08:00

Gary Clark Jr. (born February 15, 1984), is an American guitarist and actor considered by some to be the leader of the Austin, Texas rock scene, playing in a style that has at times been compared to Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan. Acclaimed as the savior of blues,Clark has established a resume which has enabled him to share the stage with various legends of rock and roll. His live performances, as well as his recordings, blend rock, soul and blues, infusing fluid guitar with a guttural howl and a falsetto trill that mix together. Despite his roots, Clark comes across as someone who is forging something unique in the music world. More specifically, his 2010 self-titled EP debuts his ability to explore various genres of music, while demonstrating his independence and distinctiveness from the heavily saturated music industry.Gary Clark Jr. began playing guitar at the age of twelve. Born and raised in Austin, Clark played small gigs throughout his teens, until he met promoter Clifford Antone, proprietor of the Austin blues club Antone's. Antone's provided the launching pad for Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jimmie Vaughan to redefine modern blues music.Soon after meeting Clifford, Clark began to play with an array of musical icons, including Jimmie Vaughan. Vaughan and others in the Austin music community helped Clark along his musical path, facilitating his ascent in the Texas rock & roll scene. Today, Clark is one of the many black musicians in rock & roll who are resurrecting the blues of today, while in contrast to the past forty years, where blues has been the canvass and playground for mainly white musicians. Clark's music, highlights how the influence of rock and roll and blues music have ubiquitously shaped virtually every medium of music over the past century: ranging from hip-hop to country music. Clark was featured in the 2010 Crossroads Guitar Festival alongside B.B. King, Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy, Steve Winwood, John Mayer, Sheryl Crow, Jeff Beck, and ZZ Top. Clark won the Austin Music Award for Best Blues and Electric Guitarist, on three different occasions.

ASIE PAYTON

2011-12-01T09:39:00.000-08:00

Asie Reed Payton (April 12, 1937 – May 19, 1997)was an American blues musician, who lived most of his life in Holly Ridge, Mississippi, in the Mississippi Delta. Born in Washington County, Mississippi, he sang and played the guitar, but made his living as a farmer.all we knew about Asie was that he lived in a shotgun shack -- no phone, no a/c; and that whenever the fields were dry enough for tractor tires, he was working in them. When they were too wet, Asie was impossible to find. He lived in Holly Ridge almost all of his life and, like his father before him, spent Saturday nights playing in one of the two small grocery stores that qualify Holly Ridge for a name on the map-- a place, instead of just a county-road intersection. He also wrote and performed blues originals, playing at places like the local grocery store, Junior Kimbrough's club, and Jimmy's Auto Care. A True Delta Bluesman!
Near the end of his life he recorded one album, Worried, for the Fat Possum Records label, which was released after his death. He died of a heart attack.
He appeared and performed in the documentary film, You See Me Laughin': The Last of the Hill Country Bluesmen. There is also a track by Payton on the Big Bad Love soundtrack. Payton's song, "I Love You" from the album, Worried, was used in the closing credits of the 2002 film, The Badge. Several artists from Fat Possum were featured in the soundtrack, but it was not released.
He and his wife Mary are interred at Holly Ridge Cemetery, where Charlie Patton is also buried

Elmo Williams & Hezekiah Early

2011-11-13T19:17:00.000-08:00

Elmo Williams (born February 6, 1933) and Hezekiah Early (born October 7, 1934) both grew up in the area of Natchez, MS.Hezekiah, formerly of Hezekiah and the House Rockers, is still the only man going who can simultaneously beat drums and blow through harmonica with the aid of electrician's tape and a mike stand. Hezekiah has no competition.
Elmo, armed with a Yamaha guitar and a full Fender Band Master stack, does everything else. For Elmo, learning riffs has always come easy, as having respect for others, their beliefs, values, and personal property has always been difficult. The harder he tries to respect others, the harder it gets. Things would be a lot easier if he's just give up. When not in church praying or playing guitar, Elmo mostly enjoys staying out of trouble. Williams spent time in the army and worked as a baker, a truck driver, and on a road crew, all the while playing music on the side, picking up guitar himself after his father refused to give him lessons on the instrument. Early banged on pots and pans and played harp outside his father's grocery store as a youth, being taught in part by area harp wizard Papa George. With the aid of a mic stand and some duct tape, Early was able to play drums and harp at the same time, and formed Hezekiah and the House Rockers. He was also featured on the soundtrack of the 1979 Muhammad Ali TV movie Freedom Road. Both men played regularly at the famed Big Haney's bar across the river in Ferriday, LA (the town that produced Jimmy Swaggart, Mickey Gilley, and Jerry Lee Lewis). In 1997 they recorded a single, "For the Love of Jesus-Chapter 1" for Sympathy for the Record Industry, and an album, Takes One to Know One, on Fat Possum. Their loud, brash, aggressive sound found favor with punks and indie rockers as well as with adventurous blues fans. ~ John Duffy, All Music Guide

R. L. Boyce

2011-11-02T08:29:00.000-07:00

RL Boyce taking the floor. He’s a musician who plays hill country blues and he does it in a way that’s totally gripping

Otha Turner "My Babe" with Luther Dickinson .mp4

2011-10-26T08:40:00.000-07:00

Rev KM Williams - I'm 55 and Gonna Rock You

2011-10-18T13:31:00.000-07:00

Richard Johnston

2011-10-10T13:08:00.000-07:00

Richard Johnston is a country blues musician who won the 2001 International Blues Talent competition award, and the 2001 Albert King Award for most promising blues guitarist. His work as a street musician ( busking) on Beale Street in Memphis, TN was documented in the Alabama PBS film Richard Johnston: Hill Country Troubadour. The film, directed by Max Shores, featured Johnston singing and playing his "Lowebow" cigar box guitar. It won first place in the professional documentary film category at the 2007 George Lindsey film festival.

Johnston studied under blues artists including R.L. Burnside, Junior Kimbrough and Jessie Mae Hemphill. His first album, Foot Hill Stomp (2002) featured Hemphill on vocals and tambourine, with assistance from R.L. Burnside's grandson, Cedric Burnside, and others. His second album, Official Bootleg #1 (2004), was assisted by Hemphill and by Cedric Burnside, as well a number of other artists.

diddley bow

2011-10-02T19:18:00.000-07:00

North Mississippi Blues (Hill Country)

2011-09-19T06:01:00.000-07:00

Rev KM Williams - Bathroom Blind Willie Johnson #2(Motherless Children)

2011-09-12T13:01:00.000-07:00

Rev KM Williams/Trainreck - Cut Some Wood Delta blues/Boogie Medley

2011-09-09T08:52:00.000-07:00

David "Honeyboy" Edwards

2011-09-01T13:47:00.000-07:00

David "Honeyboy" Edwards (June 28, 1915 – August 29, 2011)was born June 28, 1915 in Shaw, Mississippi, and passed away on August 29, 2011 at his home in Chicago, Illnois. Honeyboy is one of the last living links to Robert Johnson, and one of the last original acoustic Delta blues players. He is a living legend, and his story is truly part of history. He is the real deal.
Honeyboy was a part of many of the seminal moments of the blues. As Honeyboy writes in "The World Don't Own Me Nothing", "...it was in '29 when Tommy Johnson come down from Crystal Springs, Mississippi. He was just a little guy, tan colored, easy-going; but he drank a whole lot. At nighttime, we'd go there and listen to Tommy Johnson play." Honeyboy continues, " Listening to Tommy, that's when I really learned something about how to play guitar. Edwards was 14 years old when he left home to travel with bluesman Big Joe Williams, beginning the life as an itinerant musician which he led throughout the 1930s and 1940s. He performed with and was a friend of blues musician Robert Johnson. Honeyboy was present on the night Johnson drank poisoned whiskey which killed him, and his story has become the definitive version of Johnson's demise. Edwards knew and played with many of the leading bluesmen in the Mississippi Delta: Charley Patton, Tommy Johnson, and Johnny Shines. He described the itinerant bluesman's life:
“ On Saturday, somebody like me or Robert Johnson would go into one of these little towns, play for nickels and dimes. And sometimes, you know, you could be playin' and have such a big crowd that it would block the whole street. Then the police would come around, and then I'd go to another town and where I could play at. But most of the time, they would let you play. Then sometimes the man who owned a country store would give us something like a couple of dollars to play on a Saturday afternoon. We could hitchhike, transfer from truck to truck, or if we couldn't catch one of them, we'd go to the train yard, 'cause the railroad was all through that part of the country then...we might hop a freight, go to St. Louis or Chicago. Or we might hear about where a job was paying off - a highway crew, a railroad job, a levee camp there along the river, or some place in the country where a lot of people were workin' on a farm. You could go there and play and everybody would hand you some money. I didn't have a special place then. Anywhere was home. Where I do good, I stay. When it gets bad and dull, I'm gone. ” Folklorist Alan Lomax recorded Edwards in Clarksdale, Mississippi in 1942 for the Library of Congress. Edwards recorded 15 album sides of music. The songs included "Wind Howlin' Blues" and "The Army Blues". He did not record again commercially until 1951, when he recorded "Who May Be Your Regular Be" for Arc Records under the name of Mr Honey. His discography for the 1950s and 1960s amounts to nine songs from seven sessions.From 1974 to 1977, he recorded material for a full length LP, I've Been Around, released in 1978 on the independent Trix Records label by producer/ethnomusicologist Peter B. Lowry. Edwards authored the book, The World Don't Owe Me Nothin', published in 1997 by Chicago Review Press. The book recounts his life from childhood, his journeys through the South and his arrival in Chicago in the early 1950s. A companion CD by the same title was released by Earwig Music shortly afterwards. His long association with Earwig Music and Michael Frank spawned many late career albums on a variety of independent labels from the 1980s on. He has also recorded at a church-turned-studio in Salina, Kansas and released albums on the APO record label. Edwards continued the rambling life he describes in his autobiography as he still toured the world well into his 90s.His albums White Windows, The World Don't Owe Me Nothin', Mississippi Delta Blues Man, and a recent album in which he appears with Robert Lockwood, Jr., Henry Townsend and Pinetop Perkins, "Last Of The Great Mississippi Delta Bluesmen: Live In Dallas",were all nominated for the W. C. Handy Award. The latter album also won a Grammy Award in 2008.On July 17, 2011, his Manager Michael Frank announced that Edwards would be retiring due to ongoing health issues.
On August 29, 2011, Edwards died at his home, of congestive heart failure, at around 3 a.m.

Robert Jr. Lockwood

2011-08-17T19:49:00.000-07:00

Robert Lockwood, Jr., also known as Robert Junior Lockwood, (March 27, 1915 – November 21, 2006)[1] was an American blues guitarist who recorded for Chess Records among other Chicago labels in the 1950s and 1960s. He is best known as a longtime collaborator with Sonny Boy Williamson II, and for his work in the mid 1950s with Little Walter Jacobs.Robert Lockwood was born in Turkey Scratch, a hamlet west of Helena, Arkansas. He started playing the organ in his father's church at the age of 8. The famous bluesman Robert Johnson lived with Lockwood's mother for 10 years off and on after his parents' divorce. Lockwood learned from Johnson not only how to play guitar, but timing and stage presence as well. Because of his personal and professional association with the music of Robert Johnson, he became known as "Robert Junior" Lockwood, a nickname by which he was known among fellow musicians for the rest of his life, although he later frequently professed his dislike for this appellation.By age 15, Lockwood was playing professionally at parties in the Helena area. He often played with his quasi-stepfather figure, Robert Johnson, also occasionally with Sonny Boy Williamson or Johnny Shines. Lockwood played at fish fries, juke joints, and street corners throughout the Mississippi Delta in the 1930s. An anecdote from Lockwood's website claims on one occasion Robert Johnson played on one side of the Sunflower River, while Lockwood played on the other, with the people of Clarksdale, Mississippi milling about the bridge, supposedly unable to tell which guitarist was the real Robert Johnson.
Lockwood played with Sonny Boy Williamson in the Clarksdale, Mississippi area in 1938 and 1939. He also played with Howlin' Wolf and others in Memphis, Tennessee around 1938. From 1939 to 1940 he split his time playing in St. Louis, Missouri, Chicago, Illinois and Helena.[2]
In 1941, Lockwood made his first recordings with Doctor Clayton for the Bluebird label in Aurora, Illinois. During these same sessions, he also recorded the four songs which were released as the first two singles under his own name, which were early versions of his staple repertoire. These recordings were released as 78s on Bluebird Records.
Also in 1941, Lockwood and Williamson were featured on the first King Biscuit Time radio program on KFFA in Helena. For several years in the early 1940s the pair played together in and around Helena and continued to be associated with King Biscuit Time. From about 1944 to 1949 Lockwood played in West Memphis, Arkansas, St. Louis, Chicago and Memphis. Lockwood was an early influence of B. B. King and played with King's band during his early career in Memphis.
In 1950, Lockwood settled in Chicago. In 1954 he replaced Louis Myers as guitarist in Little Walter's band, and played on Walter's #1 hit "My Babe" in 1955. He left Little Walter's band shortly thereafter, and in the late '50s recorded several sessions with Sonny Boy Williamson for Chess Records, sessions which also included Willie Dixon and Otis Spann. Lockwood also performed and/or recorded with Sunnyland Slim, Eddie Boyd, and Muddy Waters among others.In 1961, Lockwood moved with his wife to her hometown of Cleveland, Ohio where he resided until his death. In the early 1960s, as "Bob Lockwood, Jr., and Combo," he had a regular gig at Loving's Grill, located at 8426 Hough Avenue. In the 1970s through the 1990s, he performed regularly with his band the "All Stars" at numerous local venues, including Pirate's Cove, The Euclid Tavern, and Peabody's. For the last few years of his career, Lockwood played at Cleveland's Fat Fish Blue (corner of Prospect and Ontario in downtown) every Wednesday night at 8 p.m.; the "All Stars" have continued to perform there after his death.
His Cleveland period also saw the release of some of his most noteworthy studio recordings as a band leader, first with a pair of albums playing solo and with his band of the time on the Trix Records label, and then with Johnny Shines for two LPs on the Rounder label. The latter showed both men determinedly playing the music they were interested in, rather than the familiar requests of the blues audience - an attitude Lockwood maintained.[4] Although he seldom performed without his band, he also recorded a solo album of his own material, along with a few Robert Johnson standards, under the title Plays Robert and Robert. Lockwood has dealt briskly, sometimes brusquely, with the Johnson legend. It's typical that when he gave one of his infrequent album recitals of Johnson songs, for Plays Robert and Robert (1983), he puckishly chose to use a 12-string guitar.
In 2004, Lockwood appeared at Eric Clapton's first Crossroads Guitar Festival in Dallas, Texas. A live recording with three other blues musicians in Dallas in October 2004 – Last of the Great Mississippi Delta Bluesmen: Live In Dallas – was awarded a Grammy for Best Traditional Blues Album. or the late Henry Townsend and Robert Lockwood Jr. It was the first Grammy win for the musicians. His last known recording session was carried out at Ante Up Audio studios in Cleveland; where he performed on the album The Way Things Go, with long time collaborator Cleveland Fats for Honeybee Entertainment.
Lockwood died at the age of 91 in Cleveland, having earlier suffered a cerebral aneurysm and a stroke. He is buried at Riverside Cemetery in Cleveland

Johnny Shines

2011-08-08T08:23:00.000-07:00

Johnny Shines (April 26, 1915 – April 20, 1992) was an American blues singer and guitarist. According to the music journalist Tony Russell, "Shines was that rare being, a blues artist who overcame age and rustiness to make music that stood up beside the work of his youth. When Shines came back to the blues in 1965 he was 50, yet his voice had the leonine power of a dozen years before, when he made records his reputation was based on".He was born John Ned Shines in Frayser, Tennessee. He spent most of his childhood in Memphis, Tennessee playing slide guitar at an early age in local “jukes” and for tips on the streets. He was "inspired by the likes of Charley Patton, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Lonnie Johnson, and the young Howlin' Wolf", but he was taught to play the guitar by his mother.Shines moved to Hughes, Arkansas in 1932 and worked on farms for three years putting his musical career on hold. It was this chance meeting with Robert Johnson, his greatest influence, that gave him the inspiration to return to music. In 1935, Shines began traveling with Johnson, touring the south and heading as far north as Ontario where they appeared on a local radio program. The two went their separate ways in 1937, one year before Johnson's death.Shines played throughout the southern United States until 1941 when he settled in Chicago. There Shines found work in the construction industry but continued to play in local bars.

He made his first recording in 1946 for Columbia Records, but the takes were never released.He recorded for Chess in 1950, and was once again denied release. He kept playing with local blues musicians in the Chicago area for several more years. In 1952, Shines recorded what is considered his best work for the J.O.B. Records label. The recordings were a commercial failure and Shines, frustrated with the music industry, sold his equipment and returned to construction.
In 1966, Vanguard Records found Shines taking photographs in a Chicago blues club and had him record tracks for the third installment of Chicago/The Blues/Today! The album has since then become a blues classic and it brought Shines into the mainstream music scene.In the late 1960s and 1970s, Shines toured with Robert Johnson's stepson, Robert Lockwood, Jr. as the last remaining original delta blues musicians. In 1980, Shines' music was brought to a standstill when he suffered a stroke. He would later appear, and play, in the 1991 documentary The Search for Robert Johnson and manage to release one last album, Back To The Country, which won a W.C. Handy Award. It featured playing from Snooky Prior and Johnny Nicholas.
In the mid 1980s Shines was "adopted" by a group of Tuascaloosa blues lovers. The core of this group was Debbie Bond and her Kokomo Blues Band. The group kept Shines socially active, taking him to gigs by local and national Blues musicians, and Debbie kept him supplied with vitamins and minerals to reduce the affects of the stroke and drinking relapses. Shines had very little income and lived in a simple cinderblock apartment in a rough section of Tuscaloosa. In 1985, Tuascaloosa's National Public Radio station produced a show honoring Shine's birthday. The Mayor of Tuscaloosa proclaimed Johnny Shines Day and presented him a Key to the City. During this perios, Shines was also cared for by his girlfriend, Miss Candy.

In 1989 Shines came to California to play a month long tour hitting universities (UC Santa Cruz) and clubs, ranging as far north as San Francisco's "Slims", where he played an acoustic set with David Schnittman backing him on guitar plus a mandolin player. For the rest of his shows Johnny used a local Santa Cruz CA blues band named "Blue Magic". The band leader was the late Gary Martin (guitar/vocals) David Schnittman (Bass) and Scott Cooper (drums). Johnny had suffered a stroke a few years earlier but his voice retained its legendary power. However he could no longer "fret" his guitar with his left hand and played only "slide" guitar; both on his acoustic and electric guitars. Johnny and the Blue Magic ranged as far south as the Belly Up club in San Diego and the "Palomino Club in Los Angeles. At these two southern California dates Johnny shared the stage with Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown. Shines died on 20 April 1992, in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame later the same year.

Reverend KM Williams & Washboard Jackson | Deep Blues Festival | Son House | Preachin Blues

2011-07-26T14:30:00.000-07:00

KM Williams Glory, Glory, Hallelujah (Lay My Burden Down) Cognac 2011

2011-07-20T08:17:00.000-07:00

J. W. Warren

2011-07-13T13:43:00.000-07:00

J. W. Warren Musicmake profile

J.W. Warren was born in 1921 in Enterprise, AL. In a family of eleven children, he was the only one to take up music, starting at the age of fifteen or sixteen. He entered the military as a young adult and served for 14 years. After serving in the military, he started farming and begain to play barbeques at house parties in southeast Alabama.
"I came up the hard way. I never had a break whatsoever. In other words, I never had a break in my life. I was born in the wrong part of the world and then again I didn't go any place else. My daddy gave me a good raising and I know how to treat people, how to be respectful to folks. I like that. But I had too much trouble in my life. I didn't do anything with the talent I had because I didn't have much education. When you got a back break like I had you doubt yourself, you know it's rough man!"
In his young days he dated Big Mamma Thornton when they were scuffling around together in Alabama juke joints. When Tim Duffy met him he told him that he had given up his music. Duffy convinced him to record and was amazed by his original story songs and his guitar style in which he employed his old jack-knife for a slide. J.W. Warren died of a heart attack at his home in Ariton, AL, on the afternoon of August 5, 2003. Posthumously recorded by Fat possum Records "Life Ain't Worth Living"

Garfield Akers

2011-07-01T12:53:00.000-07:00

Garfield Akers (b. 1901 or 1902, Brights or Bates, Mississippi, d. between 1953 and 1959, probably in Memphis, Tennessee) was a blues singer and guitarist. He sometimes performed under the pseudonym "Garfield Partee."The throbbing guitar sound of Garfield Akers was a primary influence on subsequent generations of Mississippi bluesmen, with the likes of John Lee Hooker and Robert Wilkins citing him as an influence!
Born around 1902 in Bates, Mississippi, Akers remains a shadowy figure; after honing his skills at local dances and house parties, he relocated to the Hernando area, where he worked by day as a sharecropper. After moving on to Memphis, in 1929 he made his first Vocalion label recordings at the Peabody, accompanied by guitarist Joe Callicott; between this first date and a 1930 session for Brunswick, four Akers performances still exist - his two-part signature "Cottonfield Blues," "Jumpin' and Shoutin' Blues," and "Dough Roller Blues," one of the first variations on Hambone Willie Newbern's seminal "Roll and Tumble."
His most well-known song is his debut, the Cottonfield Blues, which Don Kent praised with the words "only a handful of guitar duets in all blues match the incredible drive, intricate rhythms and ferocious intensity" and called Akers "one of the greatest vocalists in blues history". Michael Gray appreciated it as "the birth of rock ’n’ roll … from 1929!"
Akers' extant recordings consist of four sides, which are nonetheless historically significant. His most well-known song was his debut, "Cottonfield Blues", a duet with friend and longtime collaborator Joe Callicott on second guitar, based on a song performed by Texas Bluesman Henry Thomas a few years prior.
Akers lived in Hernando, Mississippi most of his life, working as a sharecropper and performing during off-hours at local house parties and dances. He toured with Frank Stokes on the Doc Watts Medicine Show. Akers was reportedly active on the south Memphis circuit throughout the 1930s. Akers and Callicott played together for more than twenty years, parting in the mid-1940's. Akers briefly resurfaced in the early 1950s, shortly before his death at a historically undetermined date. No photographs of Akers are known to exist.Nothing is known about Akers after the pair split as a performing duo although it is believed that he died around the end of the 1950's or the beginning of the 1960's, possibly in Memphis.

Kenny Brown

2011-06-13T13:59:00.000-07:00

Kenny Brown is a blues slide guitarist from Nesbit, Mississippi.Born in Selma, Alabama, in 1953, his family moved to Nesbit, Mississippi, when he was less than a year old. Kenny developed an interest in playing guitar at the age of ten and began teaching himself the basics. Two years later, the bluesman Joe Callicott moved in next door, and Kenny’s fate was sealed. This unlikely pair would spend hours together, whether in the morning before Kenny had to be at school or in the evening as soon as Kenny came home.
On some nights, Kenny would hear the music coming from Othar Turner's place down the way. Growing up in this part of Mississippi, Kenny was surrounded by musicians: Junior Kimbrough, Fred McDowell, and R. L. Burnside. Their influence wasn’t wasted on this young white boy, and Kenny made sure to prove himself to them all.
Kenny became skilled in the North Mississippi Hill Country blues style popularized by his mentor R. L. Burnside,he began his career by apprenticing with Mississippi Joe Callicott, Johnny Woods, and Mississippi Fred McDowell.He has also cited Muddy Waters,Jessie Mae Hemphill,Junior Kimbrough,Johnny Winter,and Johnny Shines as influences.In 1971 Brown began performing with R. L. Burnside.By the age of eighteen he was playing with Burnside’s band; over the next thirty or so years together, they would tour all over the world. Burnside often referred to Kenny as his “adopted son”and affectionately called him "white boy on guitar" and "my white son." Both Brown and Burnside have noted the singularity of Brown's being a white musician playing in the previously predominantly African American genre of North Mississippi Hill Country blues.Brown's guitar work was featured in the 2006 film Black Snake Moan, where he provided backing for star Samuel L. Jackson's vocals. He can also be seen in the film's climax as a guitarist in a blues band, playing alongside Burnside's grandson Cedric.
He has also performed with rock bands Widespread Panic and the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. He has recorded one album for the Fat Possum Records label (Stingray), and his most recent double-album "Can't Stay Long" was released in June 2011 on Devil Down Records .

Rev Utah Smith The Two Wings Preacher

2011-06-01T07:05:00.000-07:00

Rev. Utah Smith (1906 - 1965) first was a "traveling evangelist" out of the Churches Of God In Christ before he settled in New Orleans. There he founded the Two Wings Temple and the song "Two Wings" became his "theme song". Smith oftentimes used two wings while singing this song. Even before he came to New Orleans he played an electric guitar. He toured the South and was famous for this particular song. Smith recorded "Two Wings" first in 1944, but the 1953 recording is the more famous one. Sister Rosetta Tharpe stated Smith being one of the great "old" guitar players in gospel music. Smith's "Two Wings" might be a good example of simple southern community singing.Almost nothing else has been known about the life of sanctified electric guitar preacher Elder Utah Smith .“I vividly remember the first time I heard Reverend Utah Smith in 1965 on a 78 rpm record on the Two Wing Temple label. God, what a sound! Screaming vocals by Rev. Smith, heated responses by a chorus of young women, and manic, distorted electric guitar with the volume knob turned all the way up. Since that time I have longed to know more about this mysterious evangelist and pioneer of the electric guitar but have learned very little.It turns out that Smith was a major player in the growth of America's largest predominantly black Pentecostal denomination.”
– Dr. David Evans, The University of Memphis

Belton Sutherland

2011-05-16T08:31:00.000-07:00

Belton Sutherland, an unknown Mississippi bluesman--a master musician who appeared duringan Alan Lomax's session with another singer and was asked to "try" an improvised blues on Clyde Maxwell's porch.Boy! Did he try it! Kind of a cross between Skip James and Robert Johnson!

Mississippi Joe Callicott

2011-05-04T13:21:00.000-07:00

Joe Callicott, better known as Mississippi Joe Callicott (October 10, 1900 – 1969[latter date is unconfirmed]), was an American blues singer and guitarist.Although his early recording career resulted in only two songs issued in 1930, Nesbit native Joe Callicott (1899-1969) is often regarded as one of Mississippi’s finest early bluesmen. His guitar work was also featured with local bluesman Garfield Akers on Cottonfield Blues, a classic 1929 single that illustrated how blues developed from field hollers.
Callicott, whose music was notable for his delicate guitar style and rich vocals, spent most of his life here in Nesbit. He began playing blues as a young boy and performed for many years together with fellow guitarist Garfield Akers (c. 1900-1959). They played mostly around the area at informal gatherings and performed in a distinctive local style similar to that of Memphis blues pioneer Frank Stokes and Hernando’s Jim Jackson. In 1929 Jackson arranged for the pair to record for the Brunswick-Balke-Collender corporation of Chicago, which had set up a temporary recording unit at the Peabody Hotel in Memphis. Callicott’s recording of “Mississippi Boll Weevil Blues” from that session was unissued, but he played on Akers’ two-part single “Cottonfield Blues,” which was issued on the Vocalion label. The following year they again recorded in Memphis. Vocalion issued “Dough Roller Blues” and “Jumpin’ and Shoutin’ Blues” by Akers, while Brunswick released Callicott’s "Fare Thee Well Blues" and "Traveling Mama Blues" (using the spelling Calicott on the label and Callicutt in company files). Although Callicott gave up performing in the 1940s, Akers was active on the down-home Memphis blues scene of the early ‘50s. Akers, however, never recorded again.
Callicott was born in Nesbit, Mississippi. His "Love Me Baby Blues" has been covered by various artists, e.g. (under the title of "France Chance") by Ry Cooder. Arhoolie Records recorded Callicott commercially in the mid-1960's. Some of his 1967 recordings (recorded by the music historian, George Mitchell) were re-released in 2003, on the Fat Possum record label. His best known recordings are "Great Long Ways From Home" and "Hoist Your Window and Let Your Curtain Down.
He served as a mentor to the guitarist Kenny Brown when Brown was ten years old.
Joe Callicott is buried in the Mount Olive Baptist Church Cemetery in Nesbit, Mississippi. On 29 April 1995 a memorial headstone was placed on his grave arranged by the Mt. Zion Memorial Fund with the help of Kenny Brown and financed by Chris Strachwitz, Arhoolie Records and John Fogerty. Callicott's original marker was a simple paving stone which read simply "Joe". This was subsequently donated by his family to the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale, Mississippi. At the ceremony Arhoolie Records presented Callicott's wife Doll with a check for his past royalties.

The 2011 Juke Joint festival

2011-04-25T08:54:00.000-07:00

The 2011 Juke Joint Festival was a Blast! Check out below! Rev KM

Floyd Jones

2011-04-18T14:16:00.000-07:00

Floyd Jones (July 21, 1917 – December 19, 1989) was an American blues singer, guitarist and songwriter, who is significant as one of the first of the new generation of electric blues artists to record in Chicago after World War II. A number of Jones' recordings are regarded as classics of the Chicago blues idiom, and his song "On The Road Again" was a top ten hit for Canned Heat in 1968. Notably for a blues artist of his era, several of his songs have economic or social themes, such as "Stockyard Blues" (which refers to a strike at the Union Stockyards), "Hard Times" or "Schooldays".
[edit] Life and careerJones was born in Marianna, Arkansas. He started playing guitar seriously after being given a guitar by Howlin' Wolf, and worked as an itinerant musician in the Arkansas and Mississippi area in the 1930s and early 1940s, before settling in Chicago in 1945.
In Chicago, Jones took up the electric guitar, and was one of a number of musicians playing on Maxwell Street and in non-union venues in the late 1940s who played an important role in the development of the post-war Chicago Blues sound. This group included Little Walter and Jimmy Rogers, both of who went on to become mainstays of the Muddy Waters band, and also Snooky Pryor, Floyd's cousin Moody Jones and mandolin player Johnny Young. His first recording session in 1947, with Snooky on harmonica and Moody on guitar, produced the sides "Stockyard Blues" and "Keep What You Got", which formed one of the two records released by the Marvel Label, and was one of the first examples of the new style on record. A second session in 1949 resulted in a release on the similarly short-lived Tempo-Tone label. During the 1950s Jones also had records released on JOB, Chess and Vee-Jay, and in 1966 he recorded for the Testament label's Masters of Modern Blues series.
Jones continued performing in Chicago for the rest of his life, although he had few further recording opportunities. Later in his career the electric bass became his main instrument. He died in Chicago in December 1989.

Cecil Barfield a/k/a 'William Robertson'

2011-04-07T07:25:00.000-07:00

Cecil Barfield was a truly unique country bluesman with a primitive but extremely rewarding style. Born in 1922, he started playing music when he was five years old and until he was recorded by George Mitchell in 1976 he played exclusively for for his friends and relatives. Cecil was extremely superstitious and when an LP was released of some of his recordings they were issued under the assumed name of William Robertson and he wouldn't allow a photo of him to be used since someone could turn it face down and he would die. He is an intense and unique vocalist with an odd strangulated style which may take some getting used to but is remarkably effective. He was also a fine propulsive guitarist that sounds more Mississippi than Georgia. His material is a mix of original songs and covers of blues records that he makes very much his own. Some of the material has a loose free form style that brings to mind Robert Pete Williams particularly in the wonderful semi spoken Root Blues. Presumably his fears wouldn't have allowed him to travel so only a handful of people outside his community had a chance to see him perform which is a real shame as he was a major discovery.

Bishop Perry Tillis

2011-03-28T15:24:00.000-07:00

Perry Tillis was born July 29, 1919, in Elba , Alabama , and began playing his brand of rambling blues at a very early age.Perry Tillis was a professional musician who traveled extensively back in the ‘40s. “He went everywhere. He literally traveled from Florida to California.” Along the way Tillis met and played with Muddy Waters, with Pops Staples when he still was in Mississippi, and with John Lee Hooker before he went up north. Like a great many blues musicians of the day, from Charley Patton and Bukka White to the Reverend Gary Davis and Fred McDowell, he played blues with both sacred and profane content. Some of the biggest and best early blues singers sang only spiritual-type tunes, so-called guitar evangelists like Ed Clayborn and the great Blind Willie Johnson (who allegedly sought out Tillis in the ’40s to play with him). In the ‘60s, Tillis was converted and devoted himself to his music and his ministry via the Church of God in Christ. He became an itinerant preacher, eventually starting his own church and calling himself a reverend; years later, he made himself a bishop.We got to Elba, Alabama, and asked around about possible local musicians,” Olsson relates. “People immediately mentioned a man named ‘Blind Perry’ and when we found the place we hardly knew we’d found it. The driveway was covered in weeds, the house itself looked abandoned. Dogs were running around. It was not a romantic kind of thing, it was real sad. There he was living all by himself, blind since not too many years back, pieces missing in the wooden floor. He was living in a condition of total despair. Then when he played, the music was so intense, so beautiful! It was like hearing Charley Patton for the first time; it shook me in the same way, musically and emotionally. It was all I could do not to cry.” Too Close is superlative, one of those releases that not only redresses historical wrongs, but one that you find yourself listening to on repeat without even realizing it. The recordings on Too Close were made by Olsson in ’69 and ’71 and later by a close friend of Olsson’s in ’72, after Terry had gotten an electric guitar. It’s astonishing stuff. The music consists solely of Tillis’ voice and guitar, with occasional percussion caused by his feet stomping the loose floorboards in his house. From the first song, his take on “God Don’t Like It,” a song that advises against the drinking of moonshine, to “Kennedy Moan,” a stirring political number, it is all stirring stuff. Asked about this music’s rarity, Olsson says “I think sanctified blues as a tradition lived on as long as [‘regular’] blues,” but surmises that maybe “sanctified people didn’t buy the records as much, plus you didn’t have sanctified records on jukeboxes except for maybe Sister Rosetta Tharpe.”

Rev. Boyd Rivers

2011-03-11T15:07:00.000-08:00

The guy is called - Rev. Boyd Rivers.
I think he was "discovered" on a "field trip" looking for Fred McDowell, or while hunting down info on Elmore James - can't remember which.
Apparently he played slide as well, but I don't think was ever recorded playing that,little bit of Reverend Gary Davis, but more raw! He has an unusual style and a great bluesy voice!-Rev KM Williams

Charles Caldwell Mississippi bluesman

2011-03-01T08:52:00.000-08:00

Charles Caldwell (May 1943[1] – September 2003[2]) was a musician from Mississippi, known for a raw and fiery brand of electric country blues.Charles Caldwell was a tall (six foot eight) and charismatic guitar player who unfortunately was dealt a cruel hand by the music fates. Born in 1943, Caldwell lived his whole life in the north Mississippi hill country around Coffeeville, working at a fan-making factory manufactured heating and cooling equipment in Greneda, and playing the local juke joints on the weekends for often no more pay than free liquor. He got his first guitar at the age of 14, the hollow-body Gibson 135 that he used the rest of his life to turn out the raw and passionate electric blues that was favored in the region. By the time Fat Possum founder Matthew Johnson stumbled across him in May of 2002,
his public performances were limited to stints at parties and local juke joints. Although Caldwell had begun playing the blues as a teenager, his repertoire remained unrecorded until 2002, when he met Fat Possum Records boss Matthew Johnson. Impressed with Caldwell's playing and personal charisma, Thompson set up recording sessions at The Money Shot in Water Valley, Mississippi. Most songs featured just Caldwell's voice and electric guitar, though a few tracks included minimal drums. Midway through the sessions, Caldwell was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, but he doggedly continued recording. He died in September 2003 at the age of 60.
His sole album, Remember Me, was released posthumously on 24 February 2004, garnering favorable reviews and comparisons to such artists as labelmate Junior Kimbrough, John Lee Hooker, and the early Muddy Waters.

Silas Hogan - Swamp Blues Man

2011-02-16T13:22:00.000-08:00

Silas Hogan (September 15, 1911 – January 9, 1994)was an American swamp blues musician. Hogan most notably recorded "Airport Blues" and "Lonesome La La", was the front man of the Rhythm Ramblers, and became an inductee in the Louisiana Blues Hall of Fame.Sometime in the late '20s Silas learned the basics of the guitar from his two uncles, Robert and Frank Murphy, who later went on to influence the idiosyncratic style of Robert Pete Williams. Learning his trade by playing assorted house parties and picnics in the local vicinity, by the late '30s Hogan was working regularly with guitarist Willie B. Thomas and fiddler Butch Cage, making the local juke-joint circuit his new found home. A move to the Baton Rouge area in the early '50s brought changes to his music. Armed with a Fender electric guitar and amp, Hogan formed his first electric combo -- the Rhythm Ramblers -- becoming one of the top drawing cards on the Louisiana juke-joint circuit.Similar to Lazy Lester and Slim Harpo, Hogan was influenced by Jimmy Reed.They assisted in the development of the Baton Rouge Blues sound, and with band members Hogan (guitar), Isaiah Chapman (lead guitar), Jimmy Dotson (drums), plus Sylvester Buckley (harmonica), they stayed together for almost ten years.In 1962, by which time he was aged 51, Hogan was belatedly introduced by Harpo to the Crowley, Louisiana based record producer, J. D. "Jay" Miller. Miller, via the offices of Excello Records, started Hogan's recording career, at a time when interest in variations of swamp blues was starting to wane.Hogan recorded for Excello from 1962 to early 1965, seeing the last of his single releases issued late that year.Hogan did nevertheless see the issue of several singles up to 1965, On some of his recordings, Hogan was backed by the harmonica player, Moses "Whispering" Smith.When Miller clashed with the new owners in 1966, ending the flow of Crowley product on the label. No longer an Excello recording artist, Hogan disbanded his group, going back to his day job at the Exxon refinery near Baton Rogue. The chance to record came around again in the 1970s, with Hogan cutting sides for labels like Arhoolie and Blue Horizon while remaining active on the Southern blues festival circuit for pretty much the rest of the decade. With as little fanfare as his Excello singles were greeted in the marketplace, Silas Hogan quietly passed away in January of 1994 of heart disease, at the age of 82.

Lonnie Pitchford

2011-02-04T08:55:00.000-08:00

Lonnie Pitchford (October 8, 1955 – November 8, 1998) was an American blues musician and instrument maker from Lexington, Mississippi. He was notable in that he was one of only a handful of young African American musicians from Mississippi who had learned and was continuing the Delta blues and country blues traditions of the older generations.
In addition to the acoustic and electric guitar, Pitchford was also skilled at the one-string guitar and diddley bow, a one-string instrument of African origin, as well as the double bass, piano and harmonica. He was a protégé of Robert Lockwood, Jr., from whom he learned the style of Robert Johnson. His own debut album, All Round Man was released on Rooster Blues Records in 1994.He was born and raised about five miles outside of Lexington, a rural Mississippi town not far from Clarksdale. Lonnie Pitchford was one of the most versatile musicians you will ever hear. He's played one room jook joints and Carnegie Hall. He was a carpenter by trade and he was good at his work. He's built his own guitars and his own house. A guiet man who never let on he was a world famous musician; Lonnie could be seen around Clarksdale wearing his carpentry belt and carrying on his trade.
Lonnie began making one string guitars as a child and taught himself to play them. He often construct one on stage and then proceed to amaze audiences with his abilitiy to get incredible sounds from it. He also builds a one string guitar known as the Diddley Bow. He could get more from his Diddley Bow than a lot of guitarist can get from their Strat. He began performing outside Mississippi as a teen-ager, appearing at the Smithsonian Institution's Festival of American Folklife from 1972 to 1991.
By the 1990s he had toured in Europe and Australia as well as the United States. When not on the road, he worked as a carpenter.
He appeared in the documentaries "The Land Where the Blues Began" (1980) and "Deep Blues" (1992), and was recorded for five blues anthologies before he made his first solo album, "All Around
Man," for Rooster Blues Records in 1994. He was working on an album for Mississippi Crossroads Music. He also made an album with the New Africa String Band, which included Powell and Big Jack Johnson.
In November 1998, Pitchford died at his home in Lexington, from AIDS. A diddley bow is featured on his headstone which was paid for by John Fogerty and Rooster Blues Records through the Mt. Zion Memorial Fund. His grave is located near the grave of Elmore James, in the New Port Baptist Church cemetery in Holmes County, Mississippi.

Pat Hare

2011-01-31T07:48:00.000-08:00

Auburn "Pat" Hare (December 20, 1930 - September 26, 1980) was an American Memphis blues and rockabilly guitarist and singer. He was born in Cherry Valley, Arkansas. He recorded at Sun Studios in Memphis, Tennessee, serving as a sideman for Howlin' Wolf, James Cotton, Muddy Waters, Bobby Bland and other artists. He was one of the first guitarists to purposely use the effects of distortion in his playing. Born Auburn Hare (and it's hard to believe that such a name wouldn't have raised eyebrows even in rural Arkansas!) in the Cross County town of Cherry Valley, Pat immediately took to the guitar in a big way. Memphis was just a short distance away across the Mississippi river, and even as a teenager Hare realised that he wanted to be a part of the city's flourishing blues scene. The earliest records of his participation indicate that he was a member of Howlin' Wolf's first electric group in the late forties, together with such luminaries as Junior Parker, James Cotton, Matt Murphy and Willie Johnson. In addition to working the Memphis circuit, this group played regular sessions on the local Arkansas radio station KWEM.
"Yes, I'm gonna murder my baby (yeah, I'm tellin' the truth now) 'Cause she don't do nothin' but cheat and lie"..you might be forgiven for thinking. And you'd be quite right... were it not for the fact that guitarist Pat Hare, who wrote and recorded "I'm Gonna Murder My Baby" in May 1954, then took the song's message a step further and killed his girlfriend in mysterious circumstances eight years later. But it would be a real pity to concentrate on the sordid aspects of his private life, especially given Hare's immense performance on a host of notable blues records during what was a relatively short career. Indeed, it would be fair to say that Hare's contribution to the Sun blues catalogue was almost as important as that of guitarists like Roland Janes to the legendary label's rock & roll and rockabilly releases
In the meantime, Sam Phillips had set up his Memphis Recording Service with the motto "We Record Anything, Anywhere, Anytime", and from early 1950 began recording local blues artists, initially for the Phillips label, then for RPM/Modern, and from 1952, for Sun Records. Besides the great Howlin' Wolf, the artists included Joe Hill Louis, Willie Nix, Rufus Thomas, Walter Horton, and a young B.B. King. Always on the lookout for talented sidemen, Phillips soon picked up on "the new guitarist with the angry, spine-tingling tone", and recruited Hare to play on James Cotton's debut session for the Sun label. Blues anthologists generally rate "My Baby"/"Straighten Out Baby" (Sun 199) and "Cotton Crop Blues"/"Hold Me In Your Arms"(Sun 206) as being as good as anything that Cotton ever recorded, and Hare's jagged lead guitar solos (which must have sounded even more menacing back in 1954!) definitely deserve some of the credit.
Hare's sound on those early James Cotton records is as overdriven as overdriven can be. And needless to say, fuzz pedals and stomp boxes were still a long way down the line; Hare did it all by turning up the volume knob on his tiny Sears & Roebuck amp as high as it would go, driving the speaker practically to destruction!Towards the end of the decade, Hare then decided to hit Chicago, and in no time became a key member of Muddy Waters' band. The results can be appreciated on Muddy's sensational "Live At Newport" album (1960), where a band featuring Waters, Hare, James Cotton and Otis Spann plays the living daylights out of "I've Got My Mojo Workin'", "Baby Please Don't Go", and the like. Hare remained with Waters until 1962, after which he moved to Minneapolis with harp-player (and fellow Waters bandmate) George "Mojo" Buford.
Reported to have been an unassuming man in private (once married to Dorothy Mae Good, with whom he had three children - a son and two daughters); however, he had serious, and ultimately fatal, drinking problems. On a tragic night in 1962, a policeman rushed to a Minneapolis address following reports of a domestic dispute between Hare and his girlfriend. On entering the house, he discovered that Hare had shot the girl dead. Presumably in a state of panic, Hare rounded on the policeman and shot him dead too. He received a life sentence in 1964 for this double murder and spent the last sixteen years of his life in a Minneapolis jail, dying of cancer in 1980.

Hambone Willie Newbern

2011-01-12T15:07:00.000-08:00

Hambone Willie Newbern (1899-1947) was a guitar-playing blues musician. His home community was in the Brownsville, Tennessee area along Tennessee State Route 19. He was reported to have played with Yank Rachell and Sleepy John Estes (from whom most of our knowledge of Hambone was gained) in the 1920s and '30s. He recorded one of the earliest known versions of the blues standard "Rollin' and Tumblin'" in 1929.Little is known about blues songster Hambone Willie Newbern; a mere half-dozen sides comprise the sum of his recorded legacy, but among those six is the first-ever rendition of the immortal Delta classic "Roll and Tumble Blues." Reportedly born in 1899, he first began to make a name for himself in the Brownsville, TN area, where he played country dances and fish fries in the company of Yank Rachell; later, on the Mississippi medicine show circuit, he mentored Sleepy John Estes (from whom most of the known information about Newbern originated). While in Atlanta in 1929, Newbern cut his lone session; in addition to "Roll and Tumble," which became an oft-covered standard, he recorded songs like "She Could Toodle-Oo" and "Hambone Willie's Dreamy-Eyed Woman's Blues," which suggest an old-fashioned rag influence. By all reports an extremely ill-tempered man, Newbern's behavior eventually led him to prison, where a brutal beating is said to have brought his life to an end around 1947.

Joe Hill Louis

2011-01-01T20:50:00.000-08:00

Joe Hill Louis (September 23, 1921 – August 5, 1957), born Lester Hill, was an American singer, guitarist, harmonica player and one-man band. He is significant, along with fellow Memphis bluesman Doctor Ross as one of only a small number of one-man blues bands to have recorded commercially in the 1950s, and as a session musician for Sun Records.Louis was born Lester (or possibly Leslie) Hill on September 23, 1921 in Raines, Tennessee. His nickname “Joe Louis” arose as a result of a childhood fight with another youth.[2] At the age of 14 he left home to work as a servant for a wealthy Memphis family, and also worked in the Peabody Hotel, Memphis, in the late 1930s. From the early 1940s onwards he worked as a musician and one-man band.
Louis’ recording debut was made for Columbia in 1949, and his music was released on a variety of independent labels through the 1950s, most notably recording for Sam Phillips’ Sun Records,[2] for whom he recorded extensively as a backing musician for a wide variety of other singers as well as under his own name. His most notable recording was probably as guitarist on Rufus Thomas’s “Bear Cat”, recorded as an answer record to Big Mama Thornton’s “Hound Dog”, which reached No. 3 on the R&B chart and resulted in legal action for copyright infringement. He also shared writing credit for the song “Tiger Man”, which has been recorded by Elvis Presley, among others.
Around 1950 he took over the “Pepticon Boy” radio program on WDIA from B. B. King.
He was also known as “The Pepticon Boy” and “The Be-Bop Boy”.Louis died on August 5, 1957 in John Gaston Hospital, Memphis,at the age of 35, from tetanus contracted as a result of an infected cut to his thumb, sustained while working as an odd job man.

REV KM Williams The Thanksgiving Concert videos

2010-12-17T13:57:00.000-08:00

Some Holiday Boogie Vids from the Rev shot by My Good Friend OHare! Be Blessed and Happy Holidays!

Reverend Robert Wilkins

2010-12-15T08:19:00.000-08:00

Robert Wilkins (January 16, 1896 – May 26, 1987) was an American blues guitarist and vocalist, of African American and Cherokee descent.Robert Timothy Wilkins was born in Hernando, Mississippi, 21 miles from Memphis.He served in the Army during World War I but returned to Memphis in 1919 to become a professional musician.
Wilkins worked in Memphis during the Roaring Twenties, sharing billing with Furry Lewis, Memphis Minnie (whom he claimed to have tutored), Son House, and other musicians for local shows.
He also organized a jug band to capitalize on the "jug band craze" then in vogue. Though never attaining success comparable to the Memphis Jug Band, Wilkins reinforced his local popularity with a 1927 appearance on a Memphis radio station. Like Sleepy John Estes (and unlike Gus Cannon of Cannon's Jug Stompers) he recorded alone or with a single accompanist. He sometimes performed as Tim Wilkins or as Tim Oliver (his stepfather's name).
His best known songs are "That's No Way To Get Along" (to which he – an ordained minister since the 1930s – had changed the 'unholy' words to a biblical theme and since titled it "The Prodigal Son", covered under that title by The Rolling Stones), "Rolling Stone", and "Old Jim Canan's". His first sessions for the Victor label in 1928 yielded the droning, one-chord "Rolling Stone," whose title, if not structure, later inspired Muddy Waters.Led Zeppelin also wrote "Poor Tom", which was believed to have been influenced by "That's No Way To Get Along".
During the 1920s and 1930s, Robert Wilkins was one of the most popular blues artists associated with Beale Street. In a personal crisis, he turned to the Lord, offering his life in exchange for that of his beloved wife, and never looked back.Alarmed by fighting at a party where he was playing, he deserted secular music and he took up the twin careers of herbalist and minister in the Church of God in Christ in the 1930s, and began playing gospel music with a blues feel.
When the Rolling Stones recorded Wilkins' "Prodigal Son" in the early '60s, blues researchers found Wilkins at home in Memphis, ministering to the congregation at the Lane Avenue Church of God in Christ and performing gospel songs (which bore a striking melodic similarity to Tim Wilkins' blues) at street corner revivals.Made appearances at folk festivals and recording his gospel blues for a new audience. These include the 1964 Newport Folk Festival; his performance of "Prodigal Son" there was included on the Vanguard album Blues at Newport.His distinction was his versatility; he could play ragtime, blues, minstrel songs, and gospel with equal facility.
Wikins died in May 1987 in Memphis, Tennessee, at the age of 91.

Willie Johnson guitarist for Howlin Wolf

2010-12-06T09:27:00.000-08:00

Willie Johnson (March 4, 1923 – February 26, 1995) was an American blues guitarist. He is best known as the principal guitarist in Howlin' Wolf's band from 1948 to 1953. His raucous, distorted guitar playing features on Howlin' Wolf's Memphis recordings of 1951-3, including the 1951 hit "How Many More Years". His early use of distortion marks him out as one of the pioneers of the electric guitar. Willie Lee Johnson was born in Senatobia, Mississippi.

As the guitarist in the first band led by Howlin' Wolf, Johnson appeared on most of Wolf's recordings between 1951 and 1953, providing the slightly jazzy yet raucous guitar sound that was the signature of all of Wolf's Memphis recordings. Johnson also performed and recorded with other blues artists in the Memphis area, including pianist Willie Love, Willie Nix, Junior Parker, Roscoe Gordon, Bobby "Blue" Bland and others.
When Wolf moved to Chicago in around 1953, he could not convince Johnson to join him. Johnson stayed on in Memphis for several years, playing on a number of sessions for Sun Records, including a 1955 collaboration with vocalist Sammy Lewis, "I Feel So Worried", released under the name Sammy Lewis with Willie Johnson. By the time Johnson relocated to Chicago, Wolf had already hired guitarist Hubert Sumlin as a permanent replacement. James Cotton later recalled that Wolf replaced Johnson because of his heavy drinking.
Johnson occasionally performed and recorded with Howlin' Wolf after settling in Chicago, and also played briefly in the band of Muddy Waters, as well as a number of other local Chicago blues musicians, including J. T. Brown, in the late 1950s and early 1960s. He made his living mainly outside of music for the rest of his life, only occasionally sitting in with the bands of his old friends around Chicago.
His final recordings were made for Earwig Records in Chicago in the early 1990s. Willie Johnson died in Chicago on February 21, 1995

Rev. Louis Overstreet

2010-11-24T07:55:00.000-08:00

Born: January 25, 1927
Died: April 22, 1980 .

Born in 1927 near Lakeland, LA, Louis Overstreet began singing in gospel quartets at an early age. He was working in a turpentine plant in Dequincy, LA, in 1958, however, when he felt the call to become a full-time minister. Blessed with a ferocious, deep singing voice and accompanying himself on electric guitar and bass drum (playing both at once), the Rev. Louis Overstreet, along with a gospel quartet made up of his four sons, took his own brand of street evangelism around Louisiana and to Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Arizona, Nevada, and California before settling in as the pastor of St. Luke's Powerhouse Church of God in Christ in Phoenix, AZ, in 1961. It was there that Chris Strachwitz of Arhoolie Records recorded Overstreet and his congregation and sons for the 1962 LP Rev. Louis Overstreet. The album was reissued on CD in 1995 with additional tracks recorded at Overstreet's home and a track from a 1963 appearance at the Cabale Coffee House in Berkeley, CA. Overstreet passed away in 1980.

Howlin' Wolf

2010-11-12T08:29:00.000-08:00

Chester Arthur Burnett (June 10, 1910 – January 10, 1976), better known as Howlin' Wolf, was an influential American blues singer, guitarist and harmonica player.
With a booming voice and looming physical presence, Burnett is commonly ranked among the leading performers in electric blues; musician and critic Cub Koda declared, "no one could match Howlin' Wolf for the singular ability to rock the house down to the foundation while simultaneously scaring its patrons out of its wits. A number of songs written or popularized by Burnett—such as "Smokestack Lightnin'", "Back Door Man", "Killing Floor" and "Spoonful"—have become blues and blues rock standards.
At 6 feet, 6 inches and close to 300 pounds , he was an imposing presence with one of the loudest and most memorable voices of all the "classic" 1950s Chicago blues singers. This rough-edged, slightly fearsome musical style is often contrasted with the less crude but still powerful presentation of his contemporary and professional rival, Muddy Waters - although the two were reportedly not that different in actual personality - to describe the two pillars of the Chicago blues representing the music.
Born in White Station, Mississippi, near West Point, he was named after Chester A. Arthur, the 21st President of the United States, and was nicknamed Big Foot Chester and Bull Cow in his early years because of his massive size. He explained the origin of the name Howlin' Wolf thus: "I got that from my grandfather [John Jones]." He used to tell him stories about the wolves in that part of the country and warn him that if he misbehaved, they would "get him". According to the documentary film The Howlin' Wolf Story, Howlin' Wolf's parents broke up when he was young. His very religious mother Gertrude threw him out of the house while he was still a child for refusing to work around the farm; he then moved in with his uncle, Will Young, who treated him badly. When he was 13, he ran away and claimed to have walked 85 miles (137 km) barefoot to join his father, where he finally found a happy home within his father's large family. During the peak of his success, he returned from Chicago to his home town to see his mother again, but was driven to tears when she rebuffed him and refused to take any money he offered her, saying it was from his playing the "Devil's music".
In 1930, Howlin' Wolf met Charley Patton, the most popular bluesman in the Delta at the time. Wolf would listen to Patton play nightly from outside of a nearby juke joint. There he remembered Patton playing "Pony Blues," "High Water Everywhere," "A Spoonful Blues," and "Banty Rooster Blues." The two became acquainted and soon Patton was teaching him guitar. "The first piece I ever played in my life was ... a tune about hook up my pony and saddle up my black mare" (Patton's "Pony Blues"). Wolf also learned about showmanship from Patton: "When he played his guitar, he would turn it over backwards and forwards, and throw it around over his shoulders, between his legs, throw it up in the sky.Chester [Wolf] could perform the guitar tricks he learned from Patton for the rest of his life.Chester learned his lessons well and played with Patton often [in small Delta communities. His harmonica playing was modeled after that of Rice Miller (also known as Sonny Boy Williamson II), who had taught him how to play when Howlin Wolf had moved to Parkin, Arkansas, in 1933.

During the 1930s, Wolf performed in the South as a solo performer and with a number of blues musicians, including Floyd Jones, Johnny Shines, Honeyboy Edwards, Sonny Boy Williamson II, Robert Johnson, Robert Jr. Lockwood, Willie Brown, Son House, Willie Johnson. On April 9, 1941, at age thirty, he was inducted into the U.S. Army and was stationed at several army bases. Finding it difficult to adjust to military life, Wolf was discharged November 3, 1943, during the middle of World War II, without ever being sent overseas. Wolf returned to his family and helped with farming, while performing as he had done in the 1930s with Floyd Jones and others. In 1948 he formed a band which included guitarists Willie Johnson and Matt "Guitar" Murphy, harmonica player Junior Parker, a pianist remembered only as "Destruction" and drummer Willie Steele. He began broadcasting on KWEM in West Memphis, Arkansas, alternating between performing and pitching equipment on his father's farm after his family's move to this area in the same year. Eventually, Sam Phillips discovered him and ended up signing him for Memphis Recording Service in 1951.
Howlin' Wolf quickly became a local celebrity, and soon began working with a band that included Willie Johnson, and guitarist Pat Hare. His first recordings came in 1951, when he recorded sessions for both the Bihari brothers at Modern Records and Leonard Chess' Chess Records. Chess issued Howlin' Wolf's "How Many More Years" in August 1951; Wolf also recorded sides for Modern, with Ike Turner, in late 1951 and early 1952. Chess eventually won the war over the singer, and Wolf settled in Chicago, Illinois c. 1953. arriving in Chicago, he assembled a new band, recruiting Chicagoan Jody Williams from Memphis Slim's band as his first guitarist. Within a year Wolf enticed guitarist Hubert Sumlin to leave Memphis and join him in Chicago; Sumlin's terse, curlicued solos perfectly complemented Burnett's huge voice and surprisingly subtle phrasing. Although the line-up of Wolf's band would change regularly over the years, employing many different guitarists both on recordings and in live performance including Willie Johnson, Jody Williams, Lee Cooper, L.D. McGhee, Otis "Big Smokey" Smothers, his brother Little Smokey Smothers, Jimmy Rogers, Freddie "Abu Talib" Robinson, and Buddy Guy, among others, with the exception of a couple of brief absences in the late '50s Sumlin remained a member of the band for the rest of Wolf's career, and is the guitarist most often associated with the Chicago Howlin' Wolf sound.
In the 1950s Wolf had four songs that qualified as "hits" on the Billboard national R&B charts: "How Many More Years", his first and biggest hit, made it to #4 in 1951; its flip side, "Moanin' at Midnight", made it to #10 the same year; "Smokestack Lightning" charted for three weeks in 1956, peaking at #8; and "I Asked For Water (She Gave Me Gasoline)" appeared on the charts for one week in 1956, in the #8 position. In 1959, Wolf's first album, Moanin' in the Moonlight, a compilation of previously released singles, was released.
His 1962 album Howlin' Wolf is a famous and influential blues album, often referred to as "The Rocking Chair album" because of its cover illustration depicting an acoustic guitar leaning against a rocking chair. This album contained "Wang Dang Doodle", "Goin' Down Slow", "Spoonful", and "Little Red Rooster" (titled "The Red Rooster" on this album), songs which found their way into the repertoires of British and American bands infatuated with Chicago blues. In 1964 he toured Europe as part of the American Folk Blues Festival tour produced by German promoters Horst Lippmann and Fritz Rau. In 1965 he appeared on the television show Shindig at the insistence of The Rolling Stones, who were scheduled to appear on the same program and who had covered "Little Red Rooster" on an early album. He was often backed on records by bassist and songwriter Willie Dixon who is credited with such Howlin' Wolf standards as "Spoonful", "I Ain't Superstitious", "Little Red Rooster", "Back Door Man", "Evil", "Wang Dang Doodle" (later recorded by Koko Taylor), and others.In May 1970, Howlin' Wolf, his long-time guitarist Hubert Sumlin, and the young Chicago blues harmonica player Jeff Carp traveled to London along with Chess Records producer Norman Dayron to record the Howlin' Wolf London Sessions LP, accompanied by British blues/rock musicians Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Ian Stewart, Bill Wyman, Charlie Watts and others. He recorded his last album for Chess, The Back Door Wolf, in 1973.

Wolf's health declined in the late 1960s through 1970s. He suffered several heart attacks and in 1970 his kidneys were severely damaged in an automobile accident. He died in 1976 from complications of kidney disease.

Burnett died at Hines VA Hospital in Hines, Illinois on January 10, 1976 and was buried in Oak Ridge Cemetery, Hillside, Cook County, Illinois in a plot in Section 18, on the east side of the road. His large gravestone, allegedly purchased by Eric Clapton, has an image of a guitar and harmonica etched into it.

Muddy Waters

2010-11-01T08:18:00.000-07:00

McKinley Morganfield (April 4, 1913 – April 30, 1983), known as Muddy Waters, was an American blues musician, generally considered "the Father of blues". A major inspiration for the British blues explosion in the 1960s, Muddy was ranked #17 in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. Although in his later years Muddy usually said that he was born in Rolling Fork, Mississippi in 1915, he was actually born at Jug's Corner in neighboring Issaquena County, Mississippi in 1913.[4] Recent research has uncovered documentation showing that in the 1930s and 1940s he reported his birth year as 1913 on both his marriage license and musicians' union card.
His grandmother Della Grant raised him after his mother died shortly after his birth. His fondness for playing in mud earned him the nickname "Muddy" at an early age. He then changed it to "Muddy Water" and finally "Muddy Waters". He started out on harmonica but by age seventeen he was playing the guitar at parties emulating two blues artists who were extremely popular in the south, Son House and Robert Johnson. "His thick heavy voice, the dark coloration of his tone and his firm, almost solid, personality were all clearly derived from House," wrote music critic Peter Guralnick in Feel Like Going Home, "but the embellishments which he added, the imaginative slide technique and more agile rhythms, were closer to Johnson. In 1940, Muddy moved to Chicago for the first time. He played with Silas Green a year later, and then returned to Mississippi. In the early part of the decade he ran a juke joint, complete with gambling, moonshine and a jukebox; he also performed music there himself. In the summer of 1941 Alan Lomax went to Stovall, Mississippi, on behalf of the Library of Congress to record various country blues musicians. "He brought his stuff down and recorded me right in my house," Muddy recalled in Rolling Stone, "and when he played back the first song I sounded just like anybody's records. Man, you don't know how I felt that Saturday afternoon when I heard that voice and it was my own voice. Later on he sent me two copies of the pressing and a check for twenty bucks, and I carried that record up to the corner and put it on the jukebox. Just played it and played it and said, `I can do it, I can do it.'" Lomax came back again in July 1942 to record Muddy again. Both sessions were eventually released as Down On Stovall's Plantation on the Testament label.
In 1943, Muddy headed back to Chicago with the hope of becoming a full-time professional musician. He lived with a relative for a short period while driving a truck and working in a factory by day and performing at night. Big Bill Broonzy, one of the leading bluesmen in Chicago at the time, helped Muddy break into the very competitive market by allowing him to open for his shows in the rowdy clubs. In 1945, Muddy's uncle Joe Grant gave him his first electric guitar which enabled him to be heard above the noisy crowds.Initially, the Chess brothers would not allow Muddy to use his own musicians in the recording studio; instead he was provided with a backing bass by Ernest "Big" Crawford, or by musicians assembled specifically for the recording session, including "Baby Face" Leroy Foster and Johnny Jones. Gradually Chess relented, and by September 1953 he was recording with one of the most acclaimed blues groups in history: Little Walter Jacobs on harmonica; Jimmy Rogers on guitar; Elga Edmonds (a.k.a. Elgin Evans) on drums; Otis Spann on piano. The band recorded a series of blues classics during the early 1950s, some with the help of bassist/songwriter Willie Dixon, including "Hoochie Coochie Man" (Number 8 on the R&B charts), "I Just Want to Make Love to You" (Number 4), and "I'm Ready". These three were "the most macho songs in his repertoire," wrote Robert Palmer in Rolling Stone. "Muddy would never have composed anything so unsubtle. But they gave him a succession of showstoppers and an image, which were important for a bluesman trying to break out of the grind of local gigs into national prominence.
Muddy, along with his former harmonica player Little Walter Jacobs and recent southern transplant Howlin' Wolf, reigned over the early 1950s Chicago blues scene, his band becoming a proving ground for some of the city's best blues talent. While Little Walter continued a collaborative relationship long after he left Muddy's band in 1952, appearing on most of Muddy's classic recordings throughout the 1950s, Muddy developed a long-running, generally good-natured rivalry with Wolf. The success of Muddy's ensemble paved the way for others in his group to break away and enjoy their own solo careers. At Newport 1960, helped turn on a whole new generation to Waters' sound. He expressed dismay when he realized that members of his own race were turning their backs on the genre while a white audience had shown increasing respect for the blues.

However, for the better part of twenty years (since his last big hit in 1956, "I'm Ready") Muddy was put on the back shelf by the Chess label and recorded albums with various "popular" themes: Brass And The Blues, Electric Mud, etc. In 1967, he joined forces with Bo Diddley, Little Walter and Howlin' Wolf to record the Super Blues and The Super Super Blues Band pair of albums of Chess blues standards. In 1972 he went back to England to record The London Muddy Waters Sessions with Rory Gallagher, Steve Winwood, Rick Grech and Mitch Mitchell — but their playing was not up to his standards. "These boys are top musicians, they can play with me, put the book before 'em and play it, you know," he told Guralnick. "But that ain't what I need to sell my people, it ain't the Muddy Waters sound. An' if you change my sound, then you gonna change the whole man."

Muddy's sound was basically Delta blues electrified, but his use of microtones, in both his vocals and slide playing, made it extremely difficult to duplicate and follow correctly."When I play on the stage with my band, I have to get in there with my guitar and try to bring the sound down to me. But no sooner than I quit playing, it goes back to another, different sound. My blues look so simple, so easy to do, but it's not. They say my blues is the hardest blues in the world to play." Muddy's long-time wife Geneva died of cancer on March 15, 1973. A very devastated Muddy was taken to a doctor and told to quit smoking, which he did. Gaining custody of some of his "outside kids", he moved them into his home, eventually buying a new house in suburban, mostly white Westmont, IL. Another teenage daughter turned up while on tour in New Orleans; Big Bill Morganfield was introduced to his Dad after a gig in Florida. Florida was also where Muddy met his future wife, the 19-year-old Marva Jean Brooks whom he nicknamed "Sunshine". In 1977 Johnny Winter convinced his label, Blue Sky, to sign Muddy, the beginning of a fruitful partnership. His "comeback" LP, Hard Again, was recorded in just two days and was a return to the original Chicago sound he had created 25 years earlier, thanks to Winter's production. Former sideman James Cotton contributed harmonica on the Grammy Award-winning album and a brief but well-received tour followed. His influence is tremendous, over a variety of music genres: blues, rhythm and blues, rock 'n' roll, hard rock, folk, jazz, and country. He also helped Chuck Berry get his first record contract.
His 1958 tour of England marked possibly the first time amplified, modern urban blues was heard there, although on his first tour he was the only one amplified. His backing was provided by Englishman Chris Barber's trad jazz group. (One critic retreated to the toilets to write his review because he found the band so loud).
The Rolling Stones named themselves after his 1950 song "Rollin' Stone", (also known as "Catfish Blues", which Jimi Hendrix covered as well). Hendrix recalled "the first guitar player I was aware of was Muddy Waters. I first heard him as a little boy and it scared me to death". Cream covered "Rollin' and Tumblin'" on their 1966 debut album Fresh Cream, as Eric Clapton was a big fan of Muddy Waters when he was growing up, and his music influenced Clapton's music career. The song was also covered by Canned Heat at the legendary Monterey Pop Festival and later adapted by Bob Dylan on the album Modern Times. One of Led Zeppelin's biggest hits, "Whole Lotta Love", is lyrically based upon the Muddy Waters hit "You Need Love", written by Willie Dixon. On April 30, 1983 Muddy Waters died in his sleep, at his home in Westmont, Illinois; "Muddy was a master of just the right notes," John P. Hammond, told Guitar World magazine. "It was profound guitar playing, deep and simple... more country blues transposed to the electric guitar, the kind of playing that enhanced the lyrics, gave profundity to the words themselves.

Asie Payton

2010-10-14T12:31:00.000-07:00

Asie Payton (1937 - 19 May 1997)was a blues musician who lived most of his life in Holly Ridge, Mississippi, in the Mississippi Delta. Born in Washington County, Mississippi, he sang and played the guitar, but made his living as a farmer. All we know about Asie was that he lived in a shotgun shack -- no phone, no a/c; and that whenever the fields were dry enough for tractor tires, he was working in them. When they were too wet, Asie was impossible to find. He lived in Holly Ridge almost all of his life and, like his father before him, spent Saturday nights playing in one of the two small grocery stores that qualify Holly Ridge for a name on the map-- a place, instead of just a county-road intersection. Near the end of his life he recorded one album, Worried, for the Fat Possum Records label, which was released after his death.
He appears and performs in the documentary film, You See Me Laughin': The Last of the Hill Country Bluesmen.
He died of a heart attack.
There is also a track by Payton on the Big Bad Love soundtrack.
Asie Payton's song, "I love you" from the album, "Worried" produced by Fat Possum Records, was used in the closing credits of "The Badge", 2002 film starring Billy Bob Thorton and Patricia Arquette. Several artists from Fat Possum were featured in the soundtrack. Unfortunately the soundtrack was never released.

Ishman Bracey

2010-10-04T08:17:00.000-07:00

Ishman Bracey (January 9, 1901 – February 12, 1970) was an American blues singer and guitarist from Mississippi, considered one of the most important early delta blues performers. With Tommy Johnson, he was the center of a small Jackson, Mississippi group of blues musicians in the 1920s. His name is incorrectly spelled "Ishmon" in some sources and on some records.Bracey was born in Byram, Mississippi, and started playing at local dances and parties around 1917.Bracey learned guitar from "Mississippi" Ruben Lacy, and starting in the 1910s he played local dances, juke joints, fish fries and other local events in rural Mississippi. Bracey first recorded for Victor in Memphis in February, 1928 with Charlie McCoy on second guitar, and the two returned to Memphis for a second batch of records on August 31 of that year. Ishman Bracey finished out his recording career at Paramount with a group called the New Orleans Nehi Boys featuring Kid Ernest Michall on clarinet and Charles Taylor on piano. Bracey also accompanied Taylor on four selections of his own. As in the case of his close friend Tommy Johnson, Ishman Bracey's recording output is small; only 16 titles in all, although four of them are known in alternate takes. Two additional titles, "Low Down Blues" and "Run to Me at Night," were apparently issued by Paramount, but have never been found. Original copies of Ishman Bracey's 78-rpm records are among the most valued items sought by blues collectors He also worked as a waterboy on the Illinois Central Railroad.[1] He first recorded in Memphis in 1928 for the Victor label, with Charlie McCoy on second guitar, recording two sessions in February and August that year.
At that time his style had not fully formed and his performances varied considerably, probably in his attempts to become more commercially successful. Bracey's blues "Saturday Blues" and "Left Alone Blues", used interesting variations in the usual three line verse form. Bracey was one of the few Mississippi bluesmen who sang with a nasal tone without embellishment. In "Saturday Blues" he used on of the conventional infidelity themes, but he changed the form of the verses to fit a newer melodic concept. His lyrics loosen up enough to sing about skin creams and powder advertised as being able to lighten dark skin.He recorded again in 1931 for Paramount Records with a group called the New Orleans Nehi Boys, which included guitarist Charles Taylor. Bracey's total recorded output is only 16 songs, and original copies of his 78-rpm records are among the most valued items sought by blues collectors. "Trouble Hearted Blues" and "Left Alone Blues" are his best known songs.He was an associate of Tommy Johnson, and the pair performed together in medicine shows in the 1930s. By the time he was "rediscovered" in the late 1950s, he had become a preacher and a performer of religious songs, and was uninterested in recording or discussing his time as a blues performer. However, he did help in the rediscovery of his contemporary Skip James. It is worth noting that Ishman Bracey continued to perform sacred material in local churches up until the day he died.

Little Joe Washington

2010-09-27T08:16:00.000-07:00

Lil Joe Washington was born in Houston on March 1, 1939, to a mother, young and single, who named him Marion. He grew up in the Third Ward, home of blues giants such as Lightnin’ Hopkins. Informally adopted, he lived with relatives in a two-story structure facing the railroad tracks. The bottom floor functioned as a barbershop and tiny café, a place where his uncle (who played violin and saxophone) often hosted jam sessions. By the age of five, Marion was bamming on the upright piano in the corner. By nine he was also blowing on a trumpet, and by fifteen he was pounding on drums in a band led by Albert Collins. It wasn’t until he started bending the strings of a guitar and imitating local phenomenon Joe Hughes that he became known generally by the moniker Little Joe.
Following a brief apprenticeship in Houston clubs, the wiry guitarist toured with Roscoe Gordon’s road band. Later, with Cecil Harvey’s group, he worked the territory from Texas to Nevada. Around the age of twenty he settled (if that’s the word for the wild lifestyle he recalls there) in El Paso, where he played the rowdy border town circuit, including a stint at the Lobby Bar in Juarez, Mexico. There he met the group The Champs, who took him to California in 1961 to record on the Donna label (the original versions of “Hard Way Four” and “The Last Tear.” In 1963 Little Joe returned to Los Angeles, where he recorded for the Federal label, ultimately releasing tracks such as “Someone Loves Me,” “I Feel All Right” and “Bossa Nova and Grits.”
In the years that immediately followed, Little Joe bounced around his old turf, from Houston to Juarez and back, performing with all manner of groups. But the bad habits he'd developed in the wide-open party atmosphere of the border bars eventually made him an all-too-willing victim of substance abuse. During the hazy couple of decades that followed, he would often find himself on the streets, owning nothing but the pawn ticket for his guitar.
By the mid-1990s he was essentially homeless: first camping out in the dilapidated structure that had once been his uncle’s barbershop, then (after it burned down in 1997) sleeping in an abandoned car that he had pushed onto the vacant lot. But he never stopped making music. In fact he claims to have found inspiration by being forced by circumstance to hear certain sounds: the constantly improvised riffs of the mockingbird, the staccato bark-and-response of dogs, the eerie howl of a chilly wind.
He plays that high-speed, low-down, grade-A, third-ward Texas blues. He played it with the top of his head, with his teeth, with his crotch, with his foot, and then when he wasn't using those parts of his body his fingers worked up some licks that were absolutely astonishing. After he got through with his two songs, he immediately started passing his hat. The people were already worked up. They went from a mellow blues feeling to a frantic blues feeling if you know what I mean. They went from happy to delirious! Little Joe has that affect on audiences. Few people I have ever seen can cause the kind of stir that I have seen with Little Joe Washington. He is like a blues terrorist packing lyrical explosives. He just shows up and blows up. Then he's gone!
His musical taste goes from straight up guitar slim style blues to albert collins, who he loved, and joe hughes who is his brother, deep down texas third ward bottom style blues, or he could swing into some stuff by thelonius monk or miles!
You just don't know. he plays the guitar with every part of his body. and i do mean every part. to see little joe play is like going to heaven, you feel like you finally saw the real deal-Sonny James. Check Lil Joe Washington latest release - "Texas Fire Line" on Dialtone Texas Fire Line .

Hosea Hargrove

2010-09-07T13:06:00.000-07:00

Hosea has played his rootsy style of blues in and around Austin for more than fifty years, schooling such notables as Bill Campbell and Jimmy Vaughan along the way. Don’t look for guitar pyrotechnics at a Hosea show, just straight form the soul simplicity that is the very definition of the blues. Hosea’s rich legacy of song is something that must be experienced. One of the best of his kind and one of the last of his kind, Hosea Hargrove is the real thing. Hargrove, who grew up playing family suppers in Crafts Prairie, caught a ride to his first gig on the back of Son Chase's horse, washed dishes in Dallas, and pulled cotton in West Texas, playing acoustic country blues all the while until a fellow named Willie Thornton taught him how to plug in in Phoenix, Arizona, circa 1954. It was in 1949, at age 20, that Hosea Hargrove left Crafts Prairie for Dallas to look for work. Found some, too -- washing dishes in a local restaurant -- but he held onto the dream of playing guitar. Every night after work, he'd go home and practice, or listen to the old-time blues on the jukebox at the neighborhood saloon: Blind Lemon Jefferson, Lightnin' Hopkins, B.B. King. Hopkins was a particular favorite, says Hargrove, "'cause he played it low." There were times, too, that he'd pick up some country & western on the radio, and though he never played the style, to this day Hargrove considers himself a Bob Wills fan.
After Dallas came West Texas, pulling cotton by day, playing guitar by night. Hargrove was one of the last of the traveling musician-pickers, once a dependable feature on the West Texas landscape. It was the early Fifties, and Hargrove played to eager fieldhands all over Texas and New Mexico. Yet it was in Phoenix, Arizona, that he played his first electric guitar, taught to him by a man named Willie Thornton.
Hargrove stuck around long enough to learn to play like his man Lightnin' and before long he was gigging around Phoenix with Thornton, playing amplified takes on the country blues he had grown up with. It was those electrified country blues -- known as "transitional blues" in some camps -- that Hargrove brought back to Central Texas in 1956, settling on Austin's Eastside, where the nightlife was jumping.Hargrove's music reflected his journey, from acoustic country roots to the electric city life, but it never took on the urban polish of a B.B. King or T-Bone Walker, who brought swingin' horns and a chart-reading sophistication to their own country blues. Instead, Hargrove stuck with the standard three-piece of Texas' early electric blues -- two guitars and drums, or alternately, guitar, bass, and drums -- playing Eastside clubs like the IL and the Victory Grill and establishing himself on the small-town Texas circuit.
In the 40 years since, he's been a fixture on the Austin blues scene, laying down his transitional sound and taking time to school a few of the younger players who have come searching for the real thing. Like Jimmie Vaughan, for instance, who looked up Hargrove when he first came to town (pre-Storm, pre-Thunderbirds), learning at Hargrove's side. The two teamed up and started playing together, traveling the circuit and surprising a few of Hargrove's regular fans.
In interviews, both Jimmie and his brother Stevie Ray acknowledged Hargrove's influence on their style. In fact, when Jimmie Vaughan first got the Fabulous Thunderbirds together, he asked Hargrove to join as a vocalist, but Hargrove declined. Eddie Stout,the owner/founder of Austin's independent blues label Dialtone Records, recently signed to Hargrove to Dialtone in 2010 and new release; "Tex Golden Nugget' electric guitar, an ancient beat up amplifier, and 80 years of experience living and playing the blues.

Blind Joe Reynolds

2010-09-01T07:43:00.000-07:00

(1900 or 1904 - March 10, 1968), was a singer-songwriter.

Reynolds is thought to have been born in Tallulah, Louisiana in 1904, although his death certificate stated his birthplace as Arkansas in 1900. He was blinded by a shotgun blast to the face in Louisiana in the mid-late 1920s, which resulted in the physical loss of his eyes. Despite this handicap, Blind Joe became known for his distinctive bottleneck style as well as his reported accuracy with a pistol, with which it is said he could judge the position of a target by sound alone. After years of travelling and performing on street corners, Reynolds was eventually discovered in 1929 by musical talent scout H.C. Speir and is known to have entered the studio at least twice, recording four songs on each occasion.
In November 1929, Speir took Reynolds to a small studio in Grafton, Wisconsin where he recorded the songs "Cold Woman Blues", "Nehi Blues", "Ninety Nine Blues" and "Outside Woman Blues". These were recorded under the name Blind Joe Reynolds and released as two 78rpm records by Paramount Records.
In November 1930, Reynolds entered the studio once again, this time in Memphis, Tennessee. There he recorded the songs "Goose Hill Woman Blues", "Married Man Blues", "Short Dress Blues" and "Third Street Woman Blues" under the name "Blind Willie Reynolds" for Victor Records. However, only two of these songs were released, on a single 78rpm record. The recordings of "Goose Hill Woman Blues" and "Short Dress Blues" are thought to be lost forever.
The song "Outside Woman Blues" would later find fame when it was recorded by Cream for their 1967 album, Disraeli Gears. The group became aware of the song after guitarist Eric Clapton heard it featured on a blues compilation album (Origin Jazz Library OJL-8). Curiously, on their version, Cream gave the writing credit to 'Arthur Reynolds'.
Reynolds' "Ninety Nine Blues"/"Cold Woman Blues" 78rpm recording for Paramount was thought to be lost until 2000 when a copy, which had been purchased in 1976 at a flea market for one dollar.
Reynolds is known to have been polyamorous, as is apparent from a number of his recordings. He was also known to be outspoken and flamboyant, often using his music as a medium to attack society. Blind Joe Reynolds was the nom de disque of a Louisiana street singer by the name of Joe Sheppard, who devised his false recording names primarily to keep one step ahead of the law. He was blinded in the mid-'20s during an altercation with another man who shot Reynolds in the face with a shotgun. Throughout his life, Reynolds was known throughout the South not only as a singer, but for his open disrespect for police and the legal system, his contempt for conventional morality, and his pursuit of trouble. His surviving recordings are characterized by Reynolds' shrieking, high-pitched vocals; his rolling, generous, and infectiously rhythmic slide work; and his lyrics, which tend to focus on unfaithful women. Throughout his career, Reynolds travelled the country performing under various aliases as a way of evading the police, as he had served two jail sentences in his early life, as well as "escaping [his] enemies. In March 1968, Reynolds was admitted to a hospital in Monroe, Louisiana following a stroke, where he died on March 10. The cause of death was pneumonia.

Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears

2010-08-25T08:00:00.000-07:00

Search Amazon.com for black joe lewis and the honeybearsBlack Joe Lewis & the Honeybears, formed in Austin, Texas in 2007, is a blues band influenced by Howlin' Wolf and James Brown. In March 2009, Esquire Magazine listed Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears as one of the “Ten Bands Set to Break Out at 2009's SXSW Festival. Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears are an eight-piece, garage-soul ensemble featuring groove-laden guitars, penetrating brass and a fiery frontman who exudes power and attitude.
Experiencing the raw energy of Black Joe's performances, accompanied by the Honeybears' masterful backing is the equivalent of a kick to the stomach. Their gut-shot style, draws directly from their classic soul, R&B and blues influences. Inspiration from artists such as Otis Redding and The Bar-Kays, James Brown and Lightning Hopkins are clearly present in their songs and live shows, but Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears inject a full-tilt, unabashedly brash element to this old-school style.
While working at a pawn shop in Austin, Texas Joe Lewis first picked up the guitar. For the next few years, he performed around Austin at open mic nights and various weekly gigs with his blues trio. The Honeybears formed after Zach Ernst, a member of the University of Texas Music and Entertainment Committee, booked Lewis to open for Little Richard at the University of Texas' annual festival Forty Acres Fest. After gaining local acclaim, the band toured as openers for Spoon and Okkervil River in 2007.The band signed to Lost Highway Records in 2008. Following the signing and performances at 2008's Lollapalooza and Austin City Limits Music Festival, Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears released a four song EP on January 27, 2009. Even though they are not technically Blues, They are a great innovative modern blues influenced groove/blues/r&b band that has a great future! Rev KM Williams

Lightnin' Slim

2010-08-09T14:01:00.000-07:00

March 13, 1913 - July 27, 1974) was an American blues musician, specialising in Louisiana swamp blues.
Lightnin' Slim was born Otis V. Hicks in St. Louis, Missouri[1] moving to Baton Rouge, Louisiana at the age of thirteen. Taught guitar by his older brother Layfield, Young Otis took to the guitar early, first shown the rudiments by his father, then later by his older brother, Layfield. Given his recorded output, it's highly doubtful that either his father or brother knew how to play in any key other than E natural, as Lightnin' used the same patterns over and over on his recordings, only changing keys when he used a capo or had his guitar detuned a full step.
Slim was playing in bars in Baton Rouge by the late 1940s.
He debuted on J. D. "Jay" Miller's Feature Records label in 1954 with "Bad Luck Blues" ("If it wasn't for bad luck, I wouldn't have no luck at all").The acknowledged kingpin of the Louisiana school of blues, Lightnin' Slim built his style on his grainy but expressive vocals and rudimentary guitar work, with usually nothing more than a harmonica and a drummer in support. It was down-home country blues edged two steps further into the mainstream, first by virtue of his electric guitar, and second by the sound of the local Crowley, LA musicians who backed him being bathed in simmering, pulsating tape echo. As the first great star of producer J.D. Miller's blues talent stable, Lightnin' Slim had a successful formula that scored regional hits on the Nashville-based Excello label for over a decade, with one of them, "Rooster Blues," making the national R&B charts in 1959. Combining the country ambience of a Lightnin' Hopkins with the plodding insistence of a Muddy Waters, Lightnin' Slim's music belonged uniquely to him, the perfect blues raconteur, even when he was reshaping others' material to his dark, somber style.
He also possessed one of the truly great blues voices, unadorned and unaffected, making the world-weariness of a Sonny Boy Williamson sound like the second coming of Good Time Charlie by comparison. His exhortation to "blow your harmonica, son" has become one of the great, mournful catch phrases of the blues, and even on his most rockin' numbers, there's a sense that you are listening less to an uptempo offering than a slow blues just being played faster. Lightnin' always sounded like bad luck just moved into his home approximately an hour after his mother-in-law did.
Slim then recorded for Excello Records for twelve years, starting in the mid 1950s, often collaborating with his brother-in-law, Slim Harpo and with harmonica player Lazy Lester.
Slim took time off from the blues for a period of time and ended up working in a foundry in Pontiac, Michigan,[citation needed] which resulted in him suffering from constantly having his hands exposed to high temperatures. He was re-discovered by Fred Reif, in 1970 living in Pontiac, where he was living in a rented room at Slim Harpo's sister's house. Reif soon got him back performing again and a new recording contract with Excello, this time through Bud Howell, the present President of the company. His first gig was a reunion concert at the 1971 University of Chicago Folk Festival with Lazy Lester, whom Reif had brought from Baton Rouge in January 1971.
In the 1970s, Slim performed on tours in Europe, both in the UK and at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland, where he was often accompanied by Moses "Whispering" Smith on harmonica. He last toured the UK in 1973, with the American Blues Legends package.
In July 1974, Slim died of stomach cancer in Detroit, Michigan aged 61.

Tommy McClennan

2010-08-02T13:37:00.000-07:00

Tommy McClennan (April 8, 1908[1] - circa 1962) was a delta blues singer and guitarist. McClennan was born on a farm near Yazoo City, Mississippi and grew up in the town. He played and sang blues in a rough, energetic style.

He made a series of recordings for Bluebird Records from 1939 through 1942 and regularly played with his friend Robert Petway. He can be heard shouting in the background on Petway's 1942 recording "Boogie Woogie Woman".
McClennan made an immediate impact in 1940 with his recordings of "Shake 'Em On Down", "Bottle It Up and Go", "Whiskey Head Woman" and "New Highway No.51".
He left a powerful legacy that included "Bottle It Up and Go," "Cross Cut Saw Blues" (covered by Albert King), "Deep Blue Sea Blues" (aka "Catfish Blues"), and others whose lasting power has been evidenced through the repertoires and re-recordings of other artists."He had a different style of playing a guitar" Big Bill Broonzy remarked drily. "You just make the chords and change when you feel like changing"[
Although nothing is known of what happened to Petway, McClennan was occasionally seen in Chicago with Elmore James and Little Walter, two other artists who came from the Delta. McClennan is reported to have died from alcoholism in poverty in Chicago, Illinois, in 1962.

Robert Petway

2010-07-12T08:27:00.000-07:00

Robert Petway was an African-American blues singer and guitarist.

Very little is known about Robert Petway. His birthplace is speculated to have been at or near J.F. Sligh Farm near Yazoo City, Mississippi, birthplace of his close friend and fellow bluesman Tommy McClennan. His birthdate is guessed at 1908, and the date and even the occurrence of his death is unknown. There is only one known picture of Petway, a publicity photo from 1941. He only recorded 16 songs, but he is said to have been an influence on many notable blues and rock musicians, including John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, and Jimi Hendrix.Like many bluesmen from the Mississippi Delta, Petway traveled around as a musician, playing at parties, roadhouses, and other venues available. Petway and McClennan often travelled and performed together. After McClennan had been in Chicago for a few years, Petway travelled north to join him and cut records, as did Georgia's Frank Edwards who met them in MS.

One of Petway's most influential songs is "Catfish Blues", which he recorded in 1941. Muddy Waters used the lyrics and style of "Catfish Blues" for his first single "Rollin' Stone", the song from which the rock group The Rolling Stones chose their band name. There is debate on whether Petway deserves any credit for the Muddy Waters song, mostly stemming from the fact that blues musicians often borrow lines and verses from each other and often use common symbols and phrases that can't be traced back to one source. There is even some speculation that Tommy McClennan wrote the version that Petway recorded. Max Haymes has written a well-researched article, "Catfish Blues (Origins of a Blues)" on the topic, available at earlyblues.com. When David "Honeyboy" Edwards, a follower of Petway, was asked if Petway wrote the song, he replied, "He just made that song up and used to play it at them old country dances. He just made it up and kept it in his head."
There is no record, official or unofficial, of Petway's death. As such, he may still be alive, though he would be roughly 100 years old. The last record of his public life is a quote from Honeyboy Edwards: "nobody I know heard what become of him!

Slim Harpo

2010-07-02T12:13:00.000-07:00

Slim Harpo (January 11, 1924 – January 31, 1970) was an American blues musician. He was known as a master of the blues harmonica and the name "Slim Harpo" was derived from "harp," the popular nickname for the harmonica in blues circles. Born James Moore in Lobdell, Louisiana, the eldest in an orphaned family, he worked as a longshoreman and building worker during the late 1930s and early 1940s. He began performing in Baton Rouge bars under the name Harmonica Slim and later accompanied his brother-in-law, Lightnin' Slim, both live and in the studio. Named Slim Harpo by producer J.D. "Jay" Miller, he started his own recording career in 1957. His solo debut was the Grammy Hall of Fame single "I'm a King Bee" backed with "I Got Love If You Want It." Harpo recorded under A&R man J.D. "Jay" Miller, in Crowley, Louisiana for Excello Records based in Nashville, Tennessee, and enjoyed a string of popular R&B singles, including Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee "Rainin' In My Heart" (1961) and the number one Billboard R&B hit "Baby Scratch My Back" (1966). On these recordings he was accompanied by the regular stable of Excello musicians, including Lazy Lester.
British rock bands like The Rolling Stones, The Pretty Things, The Yardbirds, Pink Floyd and Them featured versions of his songs in their early repertoires. Later, the riff from Harpo's 1966 hit "Shake Your Hips", which itself was derivative of Bo Diddley's "Bring It to Jerome," was used in the ZZ Top hit "La Grange" and the Rolling Stones covered the song on their 1972 album Exile On Main Street. Also, Th' Legendary Shack Shakers covered and released "Shake Your Hips" in 2003 on their album Cockadoodledon't.
Never a full-time musician, Harpo had his own trucking business during the 1960s.
He died following a heart attack at the age of 46, and was buried in Mulatto Bend Cemetery in Port Allen, Louisiana.

Robert Nighthawk

2010-06-17T14:22:00.000-07:00

Robert Lee McCollum (November 30, 1909 – November 5, 1967[1]) was an American blues musician who played and recorded under the pseudonyms Robert Lee McCoy and Robert Nighthawk.
Born in Helena, Arkansas.By the time he was 15, young Robert had learned to play the harmonica from an obscure musician from Louisiana by the name of Johnny Jones. Robert soon felt confident enough playing the harp that he decided to leave home and took to the life of a busking musician. And, for the remainder of his life, he was ever on the move.
His early travels reportedly took him to Memphis, where it is reported that while still a teenager, he worked with Will Shade and the Memphis Jug Band. And, by 1930, he had apparently reached as far north as St. Louis, playing alongside pianist, Peetie Wheatstraw. This position earned the youngster the moniker Peetie's Boy.
Back home in the Delta, Robert's life took a significant turn when he met his distant cousin, Houston Stackhouse, that same year. A year younger than Robert, Stackhouse was a guitarist deeply influenced by the style of Tommy Johnson. In turn, he introduced Robert to the rudiments of playing guitar, and it wasn't very long afterwards that Robert soon surpassed Stackhouse on the instrument.
he left home at an early age to become a busking musician, and after a period wandering through southern Mississippi, settled for a time in Memphis, Tennessee where he played with local orchestras and musicians, such as the Memphis Jug Band. A particular influence during this period was Houston Stackhouse, from whom he learnt to play slide guitar, and with whom he appeared on the radio in Jackson, Mississippi.After further travels through Mississippi, he found it advisable to take his mother's name, and as Robert Lee McCoy moved to St. Louis, Missouri in the mid 1930s. Local musicians with whom he played included Henry Townsend, Big Joe Williams, and Sonny Boy Williamson. This led to two recording dates in 1937, the four musicians recording together at the Victor Records studio in Aurora, Illinois as well as recordings under his own name, including "Prowling Night-Hawk" (recorded 5 May 1937), from which he was take his later pseudonym.The electric guitar was a fairly new instrument in the late-1930s. Robert combined his new found fondness for playing slide with the amplified guitar and created an eerie sound that quickly caught the attention of several young musicians. Perhaps its greatest influence occurred when Robert returned to the Delta with this style. The haunting tone enamored a trio of players who took the electric slide to new heights and whose own fame surpassed that of Robert's. That trio was Earl Hooker, Elmore James and Muddy Waters.

These sessions led to Chicago blues careers for the other musicians, though not, however, for McCoy, who continued his rambling life, playing and recording (for Victor/Bluebird and Decca) solo and with various musicians, under various names. He also became a familiar voice on local radio stations; then Robert Lee McCoy disappeared.
Within a few years, he resurfaced as the electric slide guitarist Robert Nighthawk, and began recording for Aristocrat and Chess Records, the latter of which was also Muddy Waters' label; in 1949 and 1950, the two mens' styles were close enough that they were in competition for promotional activity; as Waters was the more marketable commodity, being more reliable and a more confident stage communicator, he received the attention. Though Nighthawk continued to perform and to record, taking up with United and States in 1951 and 1952, he failed to achieve great commercial success.
In 1963, Nighthawk was rediscovered busking in Chicago and this led to further recording sessions and club dates, and to his return to Arkansas, where he appeared on the King Biscuit Time radio programme on KFFA. As late as 1964, Nighthawk could be found playing on Chicago's, Maxwell Street. He had a stroke followed by a heart attack and died of heart failure at his home in Helena.

Houston Stackhouse

2010-06-01T08:55:00.000-07:00

Houston Stackhouse never achieved much in the way of success, yet he was a pivotal figure on the Southern blues scene from the 1930s through the 1960s, having worked with numerous significant blues musicians during that period, mentoring more than a few. He was a familiar figure in the small country juke joints, mainly in Arkansas and Memphis, Tennessee, and was highly respected among his fellow musicians. He also achieved a measure of regional fame as a member of the King Biscuit Boys who played on station KFFA out of Helena, present-day Helena-West Helena (Phillips County). When he finally made his first recordings in 1967, he was still a working musician, taking jobs within a 150-mile radius of his home base in Helena.

Houston Stackhouse was born Houston Goff on September 28, 1910, the son of Garfield Goff from Wesson, Mississippi. He only learned of his parentage and name at birth in the 1970s while trying to obtain a passport. He was raised on the Randall Ford Plantation by James Wade Stackhouse. As a youngster, he heard music from fiddler Lace Powell, who lived on the plantation, and two visiting uncles. His musical education began when the family moved a few miles north to Crystal Springs around 1925 and encountered the brothers Tommy, Mager, and Clarence Johnson. In addition to learning from the Johnson brothers, he was inspired by local musicians, as well as the records of Blind Lemon Jefferson, Lonnie Johnson, and Blind Blake. He launched his own career in the mid-to-late 1930s playing all over Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana and working with musicians such as the Chatmon brothers (who performed as the Mississippi Sheiks), Robert Johnson, Charlie McCoy, Walter Vinson, and others. His two most enduring partnerships from this period were with Carey “Ditty” Mason and his cousin Robert McCollum—better known as Robert Nighthawk, whom he taught how to play guitar.

In 1946, Nighthawk asked Stackhouse to join him in Helena, where Stackhouse stayed for almost twenty-five years. For a year, he was a member of Nighthawk’s band, playing throughout Arkansas and Mississippi and on KFFA radio promoting Mother’s Best Flour. After splitting with Nighthawk in 1947, he joined with drummer James “Peck” Curtis, who was working on KFFA’s King Biscuit Time alongside guitarist Joe Willie Wilkins and pianists Robert Traylor and Pinetop Perkins. In 1948, Sonny Boy Williamson rejoined the show, and the group performed all over the Delta, using radio spots to promote their appearances. Stackhouse played with all the important musicians who passed through Helena, including Jimmy Rogers, and Sammy Lawhorn, both of whom he tutored on guitar, as well as Elmore James, Earl Hooker, Willie Love, Ernest Lane, and Roosevelt Sykes. While he was an active blues musician at night, he worked days at the Chrysler plant in West Memphis (Crittenden County) between 1948 and 1954.

Unlike many of his fellow bluesmen, Stackhouse remained in the South, continuing to perform locally as well as working regular jobs through the 1950s. He continued to play with notable musicians through the 1960s, including Boyd Gilmore, Houston Boines, Frank Frost, and Baby Face Turner. In 1965, Sonny Boy Williamson returned to Helena and enlisted Stackhouse to join him once again on King Biscuit Time. That May, the group was recorded live by Chris Strachwitz of Arhoolie Records, a recording subsequently released under Williamson’s name as King Biscuit Time. Williamson died shortly after that recording, and Stackhouse continued briefly on the program with former partner Robert Nighthawk.

In 1967, field researcher George Mitchell recorded Stackhouse in Dundee, Mississippi. The group, calling themselves the Blues Rhythm Boys, consisted of “Peck” Curtis and Nighthawk. These were the final recordings of Nighthawk, who died a few months later. A week later, field researcher David Evans recorded Stackhouse in Crystal Springs with longtime partner Carey “Ditty” Mason. With the death of Mason in 1969 and Curtis the following year, Stackhouse moved to Memphis in 1970, where he lived with Joe Willie Wilkins and Wilkins’s wife, Carrie. He began taking part in the blues revival, touring with Wilkins throughout the decade as the King Biscuit Boys, traveling with the Memphis Blues Caravan, playing various festivals, and making a lone trip overseas to Vienna, Austria, in 1976. He recorded for Adelphi in 1972, with various live tracks appearing on compilations. Outside of playing the first two Delta Blues Festivals in Greenville, Mississippi, he largely retired from music after his European tour and moved to Crystal Springs.

Stackhouse returned to Helena, where he died on September 23, 1980, at the Helena Hospital, having outlived most of his peers. A son, Houston Stackhouse Jr., survived him.

Cedric Burnside & Lightnin’ Malcolm: The Juke Joint Duo

2010-05-19T08:24:00.000-07:00

If, indeed, the South will rise again, let it be musically and in the spirit of this biracial Ol’ Miss blues duo (born and raised in Mississippi and Missouri, respectively). Now based inf Mississippi, the Juke Joint Duo consists of drummer/vocalist Cedric Burnside, grandson of the late, great R.L Burnside, and guitarist Lightnin’ Malcolm. On their accurately titled album 2 Man Wrecking Crew (Delta Groove), it’s clear what makes this band so magnificent: They’ve managed to take traditional blues genres (hill-country, blue-moon, juke-joint, gut-bucket) and make it funky and refreshing without taking anything away from the music’s gritty roots. Audiences lucky enough to witness the band live will get a taste of the rhythmic and powerful sounds of classic Southern blues, then get hit with a punch of funk, a kick of hip-hop, and a whole lotta soul. The sound comes together perfectly, served in a grooving gumbo that hits you like a Mack truck. Lightnin’ and Burnside will be playing at the Lafayette Tap Room on Wednesday (Feb. 10). —jeremy lee

Robert Cage

2010-05-02T12:27:00.000-07:00

Robert Cage was born in New Orleans on April 4th 1937. A year later, his family moved to Natchez and from there to Woodville, Mississippi, a small woodsy town forgotten by time (evenby Mississippi standards). Robert's father owned a grocery store and it was there, on the porch, where Robert heard Scott Dunbar play and sing, as well as another performer named Pig. Robert's first guitar was a gift from his mother; it was new, from Sears and Roebuck, and had pictures of red cowboys on a white body. When Robert heard the electric sounds of John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, and Howlin' Wolf, he lost interest in Scott Dunbar's pre-war style. Robert wanted to catch up to the rest of America.
In 1958 Robert was in the house band at the State Line Club (Mississippi and Louisiana) and stayed loyal until it burned down, giving him little choice but to sign on at the Black Cat Club. In hope of earning more money, Robert went modern; he tightened up the same band, named them the Impalas, hired a saxophonist and added Sam Cooke and Chuck Berry numbers to their set lists. But the Impalas just weren't meant to be-- no matter what they added to their routine, or how many long, hard tours they made through Mississippi and Louisiana. Robert Cage weighed almost 200 pounds when he started the Impalas and at quitting time weighed in at less than 100. Thank you very much, whiskey.
In 1970 Robert married Minnie and began full-time work as a diesel mechanic. Robert continued gigging at local parties with an occasional club date. It was the constant hassle of finding good bands that turned Robert into a solo performer and back to the style he first learned, Scott Dunbar's style, the way he plays today. Robert, became a Fat Possum Records Artist in the late nineties, along with T-Model Ford,Paul Wine Jones and Cedell Davis.

Rev. KM Williams - I'm An Old Soul

2010-04-30T22:02:00.000-07:00

Born 1956, in Clarksville,Texas. Raised in Red River county, Texas, deep in the country of
northeast Texas. Early musical influences included the Memphis/Stax recording artists such
as Albert King, Wilson Pickett,Slim Harpo and Sam & Dave heard late at night on WLAC,Nashville,Tenn. A
guitar lesson with a travelin bluesman (believed to be ELMORE JAMES) passing thru DeKalb,
Texas(old stompin' grounds of LEADBELLY) at age 7 hooked him into the blues. Received first guitar at age 8, but wasn't very good at it. After finishing high school, joined
the U. S. Navy in 1975 & enlisted in the submarine service. After receiving christian conversion in 1980, suddenly received ability to play & compose blues & spirituals on guitar & harmonica (my father's instrument). Relocated to Cleveland, Ohio after leaving
the U. S. Navy in 1981 & begin performing part time for local gospel choirs, quartets & groups. Also played solo blues & gospel gigs. Became a ordained minister in the Holiness Church in 1995. Formed a Delta blues band, K. M. Williams & the Blues Train, in 1997. Gigs
included opening for ROBERT JR.LOCKWOOD,LITTLE MILTON,THE HOLMES BROTHERS & THE FIVE BLIND BOYS OF ALABAMA. Released one local cassette "Rollin'&Tumblin".
Relocated back to Texas (Dallas) in 1999.Begin performing solo blues gigs around Deep Ellum, Lower Greenville, Irving,& Arlington.Currently have released twenty-one internationally acclaimed CD's including 17 solo CD's starting with "THE REVEREND OF TEXAS COUNTRY BLUES(2000)";"TEXAS COUNTRY BLUES PREACHER(2001)";"SANCTIFED BOOGIE(2001)";"THE RETURN OF BROTHER LEMON(2002)(with Washboard Jackson on Percussion)",A dedication to BLIND WILLIE JOHNSON entitled"BLIND WILLIE'S HYMNS(2002)""I'M AN OLD SOUL(2003),"THE MINISTER OF TEXAS BOOGIE(2004)","COUNTRY ROADS,STREET CORNERS & CHURCH HOUSES"(2004),his first Label produced CD "THE BEST OF THE TEXAS COUNTRY BLUES PREACHER"(DWM MUSIC COMPANY - 2005),"TRUTH MUSIC"(2005),"THE RESURRECTION of BLIND WILLIE and OLD TIME SPIRITUALS"(2006),"HERE COMES THE PREACHER MAN"(2006),"LIVE WRECKAGE AND CLASSICS"(2007)(w Washboard Jackson),"THE LOST TAPES OF JUKES AND SPIRITUALS"(2007),"OLD SOUL/MINISTER OF TEXAS BOOGIE-REMASTERED,Snocap downloads only(2007)","LIVE AT THE LONGHORN BBQ"(2007)MORE WRECKAGE and CRIES FROM THE SOUL(2008).Also Formed a Rockin' Boogie/Blues duo with Texas Washboard Player and Percussionist WASHBOARD JACKSON called "TRAINRECK" and have since released four critically acclaimed CD's"THERE'S A TRAINRECK COMIN'(2003),"THE TRAIN KEEPS A'ROLLIN'(2004),"LIVE AT THE SCENE"(2005) and "11:59"(2006).Also have opened for or played on the same bill as KIM WILSON,WC CLARK,GARY CLARK JR.,ANDREW "JUNIOR BOY" JONES,ALVIN "YOUNGBLOOD" HART,ROBERT BELFOUR,RICHARD JOHNSTON,CEDELL DAVIS,DAVID "HONEYBOY" EDWARDS,JAMES MATHUS,and THE LEGENDARY MAVIS STAPLES. Two Documentaries was filmed on KM Williams & Trainreck;the first entitled"SANCTIFIED BOOGIE"(2004)based on the life of KM Williams which is currently available from Level Ground Films Productions & "A NITE IN A TRAINRECK"(2005)based on a typical night of performances following TRAINRECK(KM Williams & Washboard Jackson).Also released Music DVD'S entitled "KM WILLIAMS ;"LIVE AT THE LONGHORN BBQ"(DVD/2005)","LIVE IN ITALY(DVD/CD/2005) & "KM WILLIAMS & FRIENDS,LIVE IN SWITZERLAND"(2006)which are live performances.. As of the present,continues to Preach(started the SOUND GOSPEL BIBLE MINISTRIES in 2002),Sing & Play the Gospel and The Texas Country Blues/Boogie to anyone willing to listen, anywhere and anytime! Signed to Dialtone Records in Austin, TX on May 17th,2010.

Elmo Williams & Hezekiah Early

2010-04-13T15:37:00.000-07:00

Both Elmo Williams and Hezekiah Early are from Natchez, Mississippi. Hezekiah, formerly of Hezekiah and the House Rockers, is still the only man going who can simultaneously beat drums and blow through harmonica with the aid of electrician’s tape and a mike stand. Hezekiah has no competition - that must be nice.
Elmo, armed with a Yamaha guitar and a full Fender Band Master stack, does everything else. For Elmo, learning riffs has always come easy, as having respect for others, their beliefs, values, and personal property has always been difficult. The harder he tries to respect others, the harder it gets. Things would be a lot easier if he’s just give up. When not in church praying or playing guitar, Elmo mostly enjoys staying out of trouble.
Hezekiah loves busting big ol’ deer damn straight dead with his rifle both in, and out, of season. If he’s really bored he might eat some of it. He also enjoys driving his Thunderbird with the accelerator stomped all the way down. It makes him feel good about himself, grinding that floppy accelerator past where it should stop and into the carpet. This style of driving is Hezekiah’s way of giving something back to America, his own personal way of standing up for the rights of All-American men.
Don’t think for a second that these acts don’t go unnoticed. Ask anyone in Natchez - Hezekiah Early has a humdinger of a reputation.
- Matthew Johnson

Boo Boo Davis

2010-04-01T14:26:00.000-07:00

Boo Boo Davis is a survivor and belongs to the last generations of musicians that write and play the blues based on first hand experience of a hard life in the Mississippi Delta.He was born on November 4, 1943 in Drew, Mississippi. He started playing drums with his family band when he was seven years old. At that time he didn't have a drum kit so he used a lard can instead. This band, called the Lard Can Band, featured his father Sylvester sr. on vocals, his brother Sylvester jr. on bass, his younger brother John on guitar and his sister Clara also on vocals. His brother Sylvester jr is also known as S. L. Davis. This band played in Mississippi cities as Minnow City and Rulevine and during this time they also backed up young B.B. King who was at that time completely unknown outside Mississippi.

. It was the richest cotton land in the South and the large amounts of field workers attracted the best musicians from the surrounding areas. The entire Delta region was rich with blues, but the town of Drew was a particularly fertile one. Charley Patton stayed near Drew for many years and several legendary performers spent time there. Sharecroppers sang loudly to help pass the grueling hours of work and without a doubt Boo Boo developed his loud, bellowing voice based on the singing he heard in the fields as a young boy. In fact, that voice, through the years has demolished many amps and speaker cabinets.
Boo Boo's father, Sylvester Davis farmed cotton and played several instruments. Musicians who he played with include John Lee Hooker, Elmore James and Robert Pete Williams. Boo Boo remembers these and other musicians dropping by and rehearsing at their house. At the age of five Boo Boo was playing the harmonica and singing in church with his mother. By thirteen he was playing guitar, and by eighteen he was playing out with his father and older brothers under the name of The Lard Can Band. This band travelled all throughout the Delta. In the early sixties he went north to St Louis and was around during the heyday of the St Louis music scene (Albert King, Ike Turner, Chuck Berry and many others). Together with his brothers they were the weekend house band in Tabby's Red Room in East St Louis for eighteen years.
Even though Boo Boo moved north to St. Louis, he will always be a southerner at heart. When he is at home (and not performing) his favorite pastimes are hunting with his dogs and fishing. During Boo Boo's childhood there was no time or money for him to go to school so he never learned to read and write. However that did not prevent him to travel all over the world. Following his guiding spirit (that he calls Dave) Boo Boo has found a way to deal with modern society. The blues helps him to keep his spirit high and survive day-to-day life. It deals with all the basic raw elements of life; good and bad, plain and simple.
His first European tour took place in April 2000 and since then Boo Boo is touring Europe at least twice a year. So far Boo Boo has released 5 CD's on Black and Tan Records and all of them were very well received. Number 4 (DREW, MISSISSIPPI) was listed with the 10 best blues records of 2006 by MOJO Magazine (UK). In 2007 Boo Boo was invited to perform on the POCONO BLUES FESTIVAL, one of the biggest blues festivals in the USA and in March 2007 Boo Boo performed live on CBC Radio One, national radio in Canada. What started as a crazy idea after the European tour of Boo Boo in October 2007 has turned out to be not too crazy at all. On the Spring Tour of 2008 they decided to leave out the bass and tour as a trio (Boo Boo + drums & guitar). In June 2008 they went into the studio and the CD (NAME OF THE GAME) was released in September 2008.
In the summer of 2009 the trio played a string of big blues & jazz festivals all over Europe. During those long travels they got a lot of ideas for new songs. So in the middle of the tour they went into the studio for two days and recorded a new record (AIN'T GOTTA DIME). All songs were played live in the studio without any overdubs and for most songs the first take turned out to be the best one. This is exactly how they sound live. Unlike many modern blues bands, Boo Boo and his band focus on the groove, the feel, and the basic truths found in the blues. Blues doesn't come any 'realer' than this.

Barbecue Bob

2010-03-08T07:31:00.000-08:00

Robert Hicks, better known as Barbecue Bob (September 11, 1902 – October 21, 1931) was an early American country blues musician. His nickname came from the fact that he was a cook in a barbecue restaurant. One of the two extant photographs of Bob show him playing his guitar while wearing a full length white apron and cook's hat.He was born in Walnut Grove, Georgia. He and his brother, Charlie Hicks, together with Curley Weaver, were taught how to play the guitar by Curley's mother, Savannah "Dip" Weaver. Bob began playing the 6-string guitar but picked up the 12-string guitar after moving to Atlanta, Georgia in 1923-1924. He became one of the prominent performers of the newly developing early Atlanta blues style.

In Atlanta, Hicks worked a variety of jobs, playing music on the side. While working at Tidwells' Barbecue in a north Atlanta suburb, Hicks came to the attention of Columbia Records talent scout Dan Hornsby. Hornsby recorded him and decided to use Hicks's job as a gimmick, having him pose in chef's whites and hat for publicity photos and dubbing him "Barbecue Bob".During his short career he recorded 68 78-rpm sides. He recorded his first side, "Barbecue Blues", in March 1927. The record quickly sold 15,000 copies and made him the best selling artist for Columbia up to that date. Despite this initial success, it was not until his second recording session, in New York during June 1927, that he firmly established himself on the race market. At this session he recorded "Mississippi Heavy Water Blues", a song inspired by the major floods taking place in Mississippi at that time. This song, as well as his other blues releases, gained considerable popularity, and his records sold much better than those of other local blues musicians.Bob developed a "flailing" or "frailing" style of playing guitar more often associated with the traditional clawhammer banjo (as did his brother, and, initially, Curley Weaver). He used a bottleneck regularly on his 12-string guitar, playing in an elemental style that relied on an open Spanish tuning reminiscent of Charley Patton. He had a strong voice that he embellished with growling and falsetto, and a percussive singing style.
The two part duet with crosstalk, "It Won't Be Long Now" was recorded with his brother Charlie (a/k/a Charlie Lincoln, or Laughing Charlie) in Atlanta on 5 November 1927. In April 1928 Bob recorded two sides with the female vocalist Nellie Florence, whom he had known since childhood, and also produced "Mississippi Low Levee Blues", a sequel to "Mississippi Heavy Water Blues". In April 1930, he recorded "We Sure Got Hard Times Now", which contains bleak references to the early effects of The Depression. Although Barbecue Bob remained predominantly a blues musician, he also recorded a few traditional and spiritual songs including "When the Saints Go Marching In", "Poor Boy, Long Ways from Home" and "Jesus' Blood Can Make Me Whole".
Barbecue Bob also recorded as a member of The Georgia Cotton Pickers in December 1930, a group that included guitarist Curley Weaver and harmonica player Buddy Moss. As a group they recorded a handful of sides including their own adaptation of Blind Blake's "Diddie Wa Diddie" (recorded as "Diddle-Da-Diddle") and the Mississippi Sheiks' "Sitting on Top of the World" (recorded as "I'm On My Way Down Home"). These were the last recordings that Bob recorded.He died in Lithonia, Georgia, of a combination of tuberculosis and pneumonia brought on by influenza, at the age of 29, on October 21, 1931. His recording of "Mississippi Heavy Water Blues"(about the 1927 flood) was apparently played at his graveside before burial.
Bob had some influence on Atlanta blues musicians such as the young Buddy Moss (who played harmonica with him on The Georgia Cotton Pickers recordings), but his way of playing was quickly overshadowed by the finger-picked Piedmont blues style that rose in popularity by the late 20s/early 30s as can be heard in the development of the recordings of Curley Weaver. Barbecue Bob's "Motherless Child Blues" was recorded and performed on stage by Eric Clapton.

Doctor Ross, the harmonica boss

2010-03-01T08:22:00.000-08:00

Doctor Ross, the harmonica boss, was an American blues singer, guitarist, harmonica player and drummer — a one-man band[2] — who was born Charles Isaiah Ross, in Tunica, Mississippi.Ross played various forms of the blues that have seen him compared to John Lee Hooker and Sonny Boy Williamson I, and is perhaps best known for the recordings he made for Sun Records in the 1950s, notably "The Boogie Disease" and "Chicago Breakdown".In 1951 Ross began to be heard on Mississippi and Arkansas radio stations, now nicknamed Doctor because of his habit of carrying his harmonicas in a black bag that resembled a doctor's bag. Over the next three years he recorded in Memphis, Tennessee for both Chess and Sun, creating exhilarating harmonica or guitar boogies made distinctive by his sidemen playing washboard (with a spoon and fork) and broom.In 1954 Ross took a job with General Motors in Flint, Michigan, and reduced his playing. He released a string of 45s on the Detroit-based Fortune Records. Some singles, among them his first true one-man band effort, "Industrial Boogie", filtered into blues circles, leading to a Testament Records album and a 1965 American Folk Blues Festival booking in Europe.While in London he recorded what would be the first LP on Blue Horizon Records. In 1972 he recorded for Ornament Records during a German tour. Europe loved Ross and gave him work and recording opportunities; he was never as popular at home, and in the 1980s his performing profile was barely visible.
Ross won a Grammy for his 1981 LP Rare Blues, and subsequently enjoyed a resurgence of popularity and critical acclaim towards the end of his career.
He died in 1993, at the age of 67, and was buried in Flint, Michigan.

Big Jack Johnson "The Oilman"

2010-02-10T13:29:00.000-08:00

Big Jack Johnson (born July 30, 1940, Lambert, Mississippi, United States.Johnson's father was a local musician playing both blues and country ditties at local functions. At the age of 13, Johnson junior was playing guitar with his father's band. By 18, Johnson followed B.B. King's electrified lead. His break came when he sat in with Frank Frost and Sam Carr at the Savoy Theatre in Clarksdale, Mississippi. The trio were seldom apart for the next 15 years, recording for Phillips International and Jewel Records with Frost as the bandleader.
In 1979, Rockin' the Juke Joint Down, was released (as by the Jelly Roll Kings) and marked Johnson's first recordings as a singer. Johnson's subsequent 1987 album for Earwig Records, The Oil Man, included his recording of "Catfish Blues." He has recorded both solo and as a member of the blues groups the Jelly Roll Kings and Big Jack Johnson and the Oilers (with poet/musician Dick Lourie).He performed and wrote "Jack's Blues" and performed "Catfish Medley" with Samuel L. Jackson on the Black Snake Moan, film soundtrack,"Daddy, When Is Mama Comin Home?" his ambitious 1990 set for Earwig, found him tackling issues as varied as AIDS, wife abuse, and Chinese blues musicians.

CeDell Davis

2010-02-02T12:56:00.000-08:00

CeDell Davis (born Ellis Davis, 9 June 1927, Helena, Arkansas) is a blues guitarist and singer.Davis is most notable for his distinctive style of guitar playing. Davis plays guitar using a table knife in his fretting hand in a manner similar to slide guitar, resulting in a welter of metal-stress harmonic transients and a singular tonal plasticity. He uses this style out of necessity. When he was 10, he suffered from severe polio which left him little control over his left hand and restricted use of his right. He had been playing guitar prior to his polio and decided to continue in spite of his handicap, and developed his knife method as the only way he could come up with of still playing guitar.
Davis was born in Helena, where his family worked on a local plantation. He enjoyed music from a young age, playing harmonica and guitar with his childhood friends.Once he sufficiently mastered his variation on slide guitar playing, Davis began playing in various nightclubs across the Mississippi Delta area. He played with Robert Nighthawk for a ten year period from 1953 to 1963. While playing in a club in 1957, a police raid caused the crowd to stampede over Davis. Both of his legs were broken in this incident and he was forced to use a wheelchair from then on. The hardships resulting from his physical handicaps were a major influence in his lyrics and style of blues playing.
In recent times, Davis' music has been released by the Fat Possum Records label to much critical acclaim. His 1994 album, produced by Robert Palmer, Feel Like Doin' Something Wrong, received a 9.0 from Pitchfork Media who called it "timeless."
The Best Of CeDell Davis (1995) was also released, with help from Col. Bruce Hampton and The Aquarium Rescue Unit. The Horror of It All followed in 1998. Davis took time away from recording after these releases, and spent the next four years writing and performing. When he returned to the recording studio, he drafted musicians like R.E.M.'s Peter Buck, R.E.M. sideman Scott McCaughey, The Screaming Trees' Barrett Martin, and soul keyboardist Alex Veley. The final results, When Lightnin' Struck the Pine, was released in 2002.

Hound Dog Taylor

2010-01-08T12:29:00.000-08:00

Hound Dog Taylor & The HouserockersTheodore Roosevelt "Hound Dog" Taylor[1] (April 12, 1915 - December 17, 1975) was an American blues rock guitarist and singer.Taylor was born in Natchez, Mississippi, in 1915 (although some sources say 1917). He originally played piano, but began playing guitar when he was 20 and moved to Chicago in 1942.
He became a full-time musician around 1957 but remained unknown outside of the Chicago area, where he played small clubs in the black neighborhoods and also at the open-air Maxwell Street Market. He was known for his electrified slide guitar playing, his cheap Japanese guitars, and his raucous boogie beats. He was also famed among guitar players for having six fingers on his left hand.
After hearing Taylor with his band, the HouseRockers (Brewer Phillips on second guitar and Ted Harvey on drums) in 1970 at Florence's Lounge on Chicago's South Side, Bruce Iglauer - at the time a shipping clerk for Delmark Records - tried to get him signed by his employer.[1] Having no success getting Delmark to sign Taylor, Iglauer formed a small record label with a $2500 inheritance and recorded Taylor's debut album, Hound Dog Taylor and the HouseRockers, on his fledgling Alligator Records in 1971.It was the first release on Alligator records, now a major blues label. It was recorded live in a studio in just two nights. Iglauer began managing and booking the band, which toured nationwide and performed with Muddy Waters and Big Mama Thornton. The band became particularly popular in the Boston area, where Taylor inspired a young protege named George Thorogood.

Their second release, Natural Boogie, was recorded in late 1973, and led to greater acclaim and touring. In 1975, Taylor and his band toured Australia and New Zealand with Freddie King and Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee. His third Alligator album, Beware of the Dog, was recorded live in 1974 but was only released after his death.Taylor died of lung cancer in 1975,and was buried in Restvale Cemetery in Alsip, Illinois.
Taylor was posthumously inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1984.

Blind Boy Fuller

2010-01-04T09:04:00.000-08:00

Blind Boy Fuller (born Fulton Allen) (July 10, 1907[1] - February 13, 1941) was an American blues guitarist and vocalist. He was one of the most popular of the recorded Piedmont blues artists with rural Black Americans, a group that also included Blind Blake, Josh White, and Buddy Moss.Fulton Allen was born in Wadesboro, North Carolina to Calvin Allen and Mary Jane Walker. He was one of a family of 10 children, but after his mother's death he moved with his father to Rockingham. As a boy he learned to play the guitar and also learned from older singers the field hollers, country rags, and traditional songs and blues popular in poor, rural areas.

He married Cora Allen young and worked as a labourer, but began to lose his eyesight in his mid-teens. According to researcher Bruce Bastin, "While he was living in Rockingham he began to have trouble with his eyes. He went to see a doctor in Charlotte who allegedly told him that he had ulcers behind his eyes, the original damage having been caused by some form of snow-blindness".[2] However, there is an alternative story that he was blinded by an ex-girlfriend who threw chemicals in his face.[1]

By 1928 he was completely blind, and turned to whatever employment he could find as a singer and entertainer, often playing in the streets. By studying the records of country blues players like Blind Blake and the "live" playing of Gary Davis, Allen became a formidable guitarist, and played on street corners and at house parties in Winston-Salem, Danville, and then Durham, North Carolina. In Durham, playing around the tobacco warehouses, he developed a local following which included guitarists Floyd Council and Richard Trice, as well as harmonica player Saunders Terrell, better known as Sonny Terry and washboard player/guitarist George Washington. 1935, Burlington record store manager and talent scout James Baxter Long secured him a recording session with the American Recording Company (ARC). Allen, Davis and Washington recorded several tracks in New York City, including the traditional "Rag, Mama, Rag". To promote the material, Long decided to rename Allen as "Blind Boy Fuller", and also named Washington Bull City Red.[2]

Over the next five years Fuller made over 120 sides, and his recordings appeared on several labels. His style of singing was rough and direct, and his lyrics explicit and uninhibited as he drew from every aspect of his experience as an underprivileged, blind Black person on the streets -- pawnshops, jailhouses, sickness, death -- with an honesty that lacked sentimentality. Although he was not sophisticated, his artistry as a folk singer lay in the honesty and integrity of his self-expression. His songs contained desire, love, jealousy, disappointment, menace and humor.[3]

In April 1936, Fuller recorded ten solo performances, and also recorded with guitarist Floyd Council. The following year, having auditioning for J. Mayo Williams, he recorded for the Decca label, but then reverted to ARC. Later in 1937, he made his first recordings with Sonny Terry. In 1938 Fuller, who was described as having a fiery temper,[2] was imprisoned for shooting a pistol at his wife, wounding her in the leg, causing him to miss out on John Hammond's "Spirituals to Swing" concert in NYC that year. While Fuller was eventually released, it was Sonny Terry who went in his stead, the beginning of a long "folk music" career. Fuller's last two recording sessions took place in New York City during 1940.

Fuller's repertoire included a number of popular double entendre "hokum" songs such as "I Want Some Of Your Pie", "Truckin' My Blues Away" (the origin of the phrase "keep on truckin'"), and "Get Your Yas Yas Out" (adapted as "Get Your Ya-Yas Out" for the origin of a later Rolling Stones album title), together with the autobiographical "Big House Bound" dedicated to his time spent in jail. Though much of his material was culled from traditional folk and blues numbers, he possessed a formidable finger-picking guitar style. He played a steel National resonator guitar.[4] He was criticised by some as a derivative musician, but his ability to fuse together elements of other traditional and contemporary songs and reformulate them into his own performances, attracted a broad audience.[2] He was an expressive vocalist and a masterful guitar player, best remembered for his uptempo ragtime hits including "Step It Up and Go." At the same time he was capable of deeper material, and his versions of "Lost Lover Blues", "Rattlesnakin' Daddy" and "Mamie" are as deep as most Delta blues. Because of his popularity, he may have been overexposed on records, yet most of his songs remained close to tradition and much of his repertoire and style is kept alive by other Piedmont artists to this day.

Fuller underwent a suprapubic cystostomy in July 1940 (probably an outcome of excessive drinking) but continued to require medical treatment. He died at his home in Durham, North Carolina on February 13, 1941 at 5:00 PM of pyemia due to an infected bladder, GI tract and perineum, plus kidney failure.Blind Boy Fuller's final resting place is Grove Hill Cemetery, located on private property in Durham, North Carolina. State records indicate that this was once an official cemetery, and Fuller's interment is recorded. The only remaining headstone is that of Mary Caston Langey. The funeral arrangements were handled by McLaurin Funeral Home of Durham, North Carolina, and the burial took place on February 15, 1941.

william harris/ bullfrog blues

2009-12-11T20:54:00.000-08:00

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.

Junior Kimbrough

2009-12-02T12:58:00.000-08:00

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 Johnson

2009-11-18T19:00:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-02T08:39:00.000-08:00

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.

J.T. 'FUNNY PAPER' SMITH - The Original Howling Wolf

2009-10-15T07:49:00.000-07:00

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

The Rev. KM Williams Store

2009-10-12T18:19:00.000-07:00

The Rev. KM Williams Store

Blind Willie McTell

2009-10-01T15:51:00.000-07:00

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.

Leadbelly

2009-09-09T15:13:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-22T05:42:00.000-07:00

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.

T-Model Ford "The Taildragger"

2009-08-04T14:57:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-02T08:40:00.000-07:00

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.

Rube Lacy

2009-06-10T12:51:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-26T12:22:00.000-07:00

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 - the epitome of intense electrified urban Chicago blues

2009-05-07T15:08:00.000-07:00

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.

Charley Patton - Father of Delta Blues

2009-05-01T14:53:00.000-07:00

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 - The King of the Slide Guitar

2009-04-29T09:15:00.000-07:00

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.

Juke Boy Bonner

2009-04-07T18:53:00.000-07:00

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 - Delta Bluesman

2009-04-02T15:35:00.000-07:00

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.

SXSW;Rev.KM Williams and The Trainreck

2009-03-23T18:19:00.000-07:00

SXSW

LIL Son Jackson - East Texas Country Bluesman

2009-03-15T18:42:00.000-07:00

* 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
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Frankie Lee Sims - Texas Country Bluesman

2009-02-24T06:18:00.000-08:00

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 - Father of Texas Blues

2009-02-10T11:17:00.000-08:00

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.

Rev. Pearly Brown Piedmont Guitar Evangelist

2009-01-26T09:53:00.000-08:00

Quite possible the last of the great blues street singers, Rev. Pearly Brown was born August 18, 1915, in Abbeville, GA. Blind from birth, he grew up in Americus, GA, where he reportedly learned to play guitar at the age of seven. As a young man he began to busk on the streets in Americus, eventually moving on to Macon, where he was a fixture on the streets for several decades. His repertoire drew heavily on Blind Willie Johnson, whose slide style he made his own. Like Johnson, he played a kind of blues gospel, singing spirituals and what Brown called "slave songs," along with country songs like "Great Speckled Bird" that had a strong spiritual content. He tasted a good deal of success in the 1960s, frequently playing large jazz and blues festivals, even opening for touring rock bands, and he was the first black performer to play on The Grand Old Opry. Rumor has it that he mentored both Duane Allman and Dickey Betts on the slide guitar. A solid singer and an often brilliant guitar player, Brown's discography is small but of high quality. Henry Oster recorded him in Macon in 1961 for the album Georgia Street Singer, which was released on Oster's Folk-Lyric label. In 1973 Bill Nowlin recorded It's a Mean Old World to Try to Live In for Rounder Records. A documentary on Brown called Mean Old World was filmed by John English in 1975, and eventually was combined with a film about bluesman Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup entitled Born in the Blues and released on video in 1997. Rev. Brown continued to sing on the streets of Macon until 1979, when poor health forced him to retire. He died in 1986. ~ Steve Leggett, All Music Guide
Representative Albums:
Georgia Street Singer, You're Gonna Need That Pure Religion, It's a Mean Old World to Try To Live in

Mississippi Fred McDowell - North Mississippi Blues Master

2009-01-13T07:58:00.000-08:00

Fred McDowell (January 12, 1904 - July 3, 1972), often known as Mississippi Fred McDowell, was a blues singer and guitar player in the North Mississippi style.

McDowell was born in Rossville, Tennessee, near Memphis. His parents, who were farmers, died when McDowell was a youth. He started playing guitar at the age of 14 and played at dances around Rossville. Wanting a change from ploughing fields, he moved to Memphis in 1926 where he worked in a number of jobs and played music for tips. He settled in Como, Mississippi, about 40 miles south of Memphis, in 1940 or 1941, and worked steadily as a farmer, continuing to perform music at dances, and picnics. Initially he played slide guitar using a pocket knife and then a slide made from a beef rib bone, later switching to a glass slide for its clearer sound. He played with the slide on his ring finger.

While commonly lumped together with "Delta Blues singers," McDowell actually may be considered the first of the bluesmen from the North Mississippi region - parallel to, but somewhat east of the Delta region - to achieve widespread recognition for his work. A version of the state’s signature musical form somewhat closer in structure to its African roots (often eschewing the chord change for the hypnotic effect of the droning, single chord vamp), the North Mississippi style (or at least its aesthetic) may be heard to have been carried on in the music of such figures as Junior Kimbrough and R. L. Burnside; as well as the jam band The North Mississippi Allstars, while serving as the original impetus behind creation of the Fat Possum record label out of Oxford, Mississippi.
McDowell's recordings were popular, and he performed often at festivals and clubs. McDowell continued to perform blues in the North Mississippi blues style much as he had for decades, but he sometimes performed on electric guitar rather than acoustic. While he famously declared "I do not play no rock and roll," McDowell was not averse to associating with many younger rock musicians: He coached Bonnie Raitt on slide guitar technique, and was reportedly flattered by The Rolling Stones' rather straightforward, authentic version of his "You Gotta Move" on their 1971 Sticky Fingers album.
McDowell's 1969 album I Do Not Play No Rock 'N' Roll was his first featuring electric guitar. It features parts of an interview in which he discusses the origins of the blues and the nature of love. This interview was sampled and mixed into a song (also titled "I Do Not Play No Rock 'N' Roll" by Dangerman in 1999.

McDowell died of cancer in 1972 and is buried at Hammond Hill Baptist Church, between Como and Senatobia. On August 6, 1993 a memorial was placed on his grave site by the Mt. Zion Memorial Fund. The ceremony was presided over by Dick Waterman, and the memorial with McDowell's portrait upon it was paid for by Bonnie Raitt.

Rev. Gary Davis - Piedmont Gospel Blues Master

2009-01-02T09:16:00.000-08:00

Reverend Gary Davis, also Blind Gary Davis, (April 30, 1896 – May 5, 1972) was a blues and gospel singer and guitarist. His unique finger-picking style influenced many other artists and his students in New York City included Stefan Grossman, David Bromberg, Roy Book Binder, Woody Mann, Nick Katzman, Dave Van Ronk, Tom Winslow, and Ernie Hawkins. Born in Laurens, South Carolina, Davis became blind at a very young age. He took to the guitar and assumed a unique multi-voice style produced solely with his thumb and index finger, playing not only ragtime and blues tunes, but also traditional and original tunes in four-part harmony.In the mid-1920s, Davis migrated to Durham, North Carolina, a major center for black culture at the time. There he collaborated with a number of other artists in the Piedmont blues scene including Blind Boy Fuller and Bull City Red. In 1935, J. B. Long, a store manager with a reputation for supporting local artists, introduced Davis, Fuller and Red to the American Record Company. The subsequent recording sessions marked the real beginning of Davis' career. During his time in Durham, Davis converted to Christianity; he would later become ordained as a Baptist minister. Following his conversion and especially his ordination, Davis began to express a preference for inspirational gospel music. In the 1940s, the blues scene in Durham began to decline and Davis migrated to New York City. By the 1960s, he had become known as the "Harlem Street Singer" and also acquired a reputation as the person to see if you wanted to learn to play guitar. As a teacher, Davis was exceptionally patient and thorough, making sure students would learn and adapt his original left-hand fingerings. The folk revival of the 1960s re-invigorated Davis' career, culminating in a performance at the Newport Folk Festival and the recording by Peter, Paul and Mary of "Samson and Delilah", also known as "If I Had My Way", originally a Blind Willie Johnson recording that Davis had popularized.He has influenced the Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan, Wizz Jones, Jorma Kaukonen, Keb Mo, Ollabelle and Resurrection Band.

Blind Willie Johnson - The Father of Gospel Blues

2008-12-23T09:59:00.000-08:00

"Blind" Willie Johnson (January 22, 1897 – September 18, 1945) was an American singer and guitarist whose music straddled the border between blues and spirituals. While the lyrics of all of his songs were religious, his music drew from both sacred and blues traditions. Among musicians, he is considered one of the greatest slide or bottleneck guitarists, as well as one of the most revered figures of depression-era gospel music. His music is distinguished by his powerful bass thumb-picking and gravelly false-bass voice, with occasional use of a tenor voice.Blind Willie Johnson was born in 1897 near Brenham, Texas (before the discovery of his death certificate, Temple, Texas had been suggested as his birthplace). When he was five, he told his father he wanted to be a preacher, and then made himself a cigar box guitar. His mother died when he was young and his father remarried soon after her death.
Johnson was not born blind, and, although it is not known how he lost his sight, Angeline Johnson provided the following account to Samuel Charters. She said when Willie was seven his father beat his stepmother after catching her going out with another man. The stepmother then picked up a handful of lye and threw it, not at Willie's father, but into the face of young Willie.
His father would often leave him on street corners to sing for money, where his powerful voice left an indelible impression on passers-by. Legend has it that he was arrested for nearly starting a riot at a New Orleans courthouse with a powerful rendition of "If I Had My Way I'd Tear the Building Down", a song about Samson and Delilah. According to Samuel Charters, however, he was simply arrested while singing for tips in front of a Custom House, by a police officer who misconstrued the title lyric and mistook it for incitement.
Johnson made 30 commercial recording studio record sides in five separate sessions for Columbia Records from 1927–1930. On some of these recordings Johnson uses a fast rhythmic picking style, while on others he plays slide guitar. According to a reputed one-time acquaintance, Blind Willie McTell (1898-1959), Johnson played with a brass ring, although other sources cite him using a knife.Some of Johnson's most famous recordings include "In My Time of Dying" (identified as "Jesus Make up My Dying Bed" on his recordings), his rendition of the famous gospel song "Let Your Light Shine On Me", as well as the raw, powerful "Dark Was The Night, Cold Was the Ground", where he sings in wordless hum and moans about the crucifixion of Jesus. This song was a "moaning" piece related to the Bentonia school of blues practiced by such "eerie voiced" artists as Skip James and Robert Johnson.On 14 of his recordings he is accompanied by Willie B Harris or an as-yet-unidentified female singer. This group of recordings includes "Church I'm Fully Saved Today", "John the Revelator" (a cover of which is featured on the soundtrack of Blues Brothers 2000, sung by Taj Mahal), "You'll Need Somebody on Your Bond", and "Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning".
It is thought that Johnson was married twice, first to a woman with the same first name, Willie B Harris, and later to a young singer named Angeline, who was the sister of blues guitarist L.C. Robinson. No marriage certificates have yet been discovered. As Angeline Johnson often sang and performed with him, the first person to attempt to research his biography, Samuel Charters, made the mistake of assuming it was Angeline who had sung on several of Johnson's records. However, later research showed that it was Johnson's first wife.
Johnson remained poor until the end of his life, preaching and singing in the streets of Beaumont, Texas to anyone who would listen. A city directory shows that in 1944, a Rev W J Johnson, undoubtedly Blind Willie, operated the House of Prayer at 1440 Forrest Street, Beaumont, Texas.[2] This is the same address listed on Blind Willie's death certificate. In 1945, his home burned to the ground. With nowhere else to go, Johnson lived in the burned ruins of his home, sleeping on a wet bed. He lived like this until he contracted pneumonia two weeks later, and died. (The death certificate reports the cause of death as malarial fever, with syphilis and blindness as contributing factors.)[3] In a later interview his wife said she tried to take him to a hospital but they refused to admit him because he was black, while other sources report that, according to Johnson's wife, his refusal was due to his blindness. Although there is some dispute as to where his grave is, members of the Beaumont community have committed to finding the site and preserving it.
His records have kept his music tremendously influential and his songs have been covered by several popular artists, including Led Zeppelin (who included his photograph on their second album), Bob Dylan, The 77s, Beck, Phil Keaggy and The White Stripes (who have covered "John the Revelator", as well as covering "Motherless Children Have A Hard Time" and "Lord, I Just Can't Keep From Cryin'" live)."If I Had My Way I'd Tear the Building Down" was recorded by Peter, Paul, and Mary; retitled as "Samson and Delilah", it was frequently performed by the Grateful Dead and appears on the studio album Terrapin Station; Rev.Gary Davis also has recorded a version of the song. "John the Revelator" was also recorded by delta blues musician Son House, and "Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning" was recorded by another delta blues musician, Fred McDowell. "Nobody's Fault But Mine" has also been covered by Mason Jennings, Nina Simone, and was modified by Led Zeppelin. Nick Cave has performed "John the Revelator" live, and based his song "City of Refuge".Johnson's recordings and legacy have crossed over into other media and cultural contexts. Dark Was The Night, Cold Was the Ground was included on the Voyager Golden Record, sent into space with the Voyager spacecraft in 1977.A Movie,Whose soundtrack is partly based on his music,called "The Ladykillers".Ry Cooder, who based his desolate soundtrack to Paris, Texas on "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground", described it as "the most soulful, transcendent piece in all American music".

R. L. Burnside - Father of Modern Deep Blues

2008-12-17T14:32:00.000-08:00

R. L. Burnside (born Robert Lee Burnside, November 23, 1926 - September 1, 2005) was a North Mississippi hill country blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist who lived much of his life in and around Holly Springs, Mississippi. He played music for much of his life, but did not receive much attention until the early 1990s. In the latter half of the '90s, Burnside repeatedly recorded with Jon Spencer, garnering crossover appeal and introducing his music to a new fanbase within the underground punk blues music scene.Burnside was born in Harmontown, Mississippi, in Lafayette County. Burnside spent most of his life in the rural hill country of northern Mississippi, working as a sharecropper and a commercial fisherman, as well as playing guitar at weekend house parties. He was first inspired to pick up the guitar in his early twenties, after hearing the 1948 John Lee Hooker single, "Boogie Chillen" (which inspired numerous other rural bluesmen, among them Buddy Guy, to start playing). He learned music largely from Mississippi Fred McDowell, who lived nearby in an adjoining county. He also cited his cousin-in-law, Muddy Waters, as an influence.During the 1950s, Burnside grew tired of sharecropping and moved to Chicago, Illinois in the hopes of finding better economic opportunities. But things did not turn out as he had hoped. Within the span of one month his father, brother, and uncle were all murdered in the city, a tragedy that Burnside would later draw upon in his work,he left Chicago and went back to Mississippi to work the farms and raise a family. Burnside was convicted for murder and sentenced to six months' incarceration (in Parchman Prison [2]) for the crime. Burnside's boss at the time reputedly pulled strings to keep the murder sentence short, due to having need of Burnside's skills as a tractor driver. "I didn't mean to kill nobody," Burnside later said. "I just meant to shoot the sonofabitch in the head. Him dying was between him and the Lord."[3]
In the 1990s, he began recording for the Oxford, Mississippi, label Fat Possum Records. Founded by Living Blues magazine editor Peter Redvers-Lee and Matthew Johnson, the label was dedicated to recording ageing North Mississippi bluesmen such as Burnside and Junior Kimbrough. Burnside remained with Fat Possum from that time until his death, and he usually performed with his friend and understudy, the slide guitarist Kenny Brown, with whom he began playing in 1971 and claimed as his "adopted son."In the mid 1990s, Burnside attracted the attention of Jon Spencer, the leader of the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, touring and recording with this group and gaining a new audience in the process.After the death of Kimbrough and the burning of Kimbrough's juke joint in Chulahoma, Mississippi, Burnside quit recording studio material for Fat Possum,though he did continue to tour.After a heart attack in 2001, Burnside's doctor advised him to stop drinking; Burnside did, but he reported that change left him unable to play.Burnside had a powerful, expressive voice and played both electric and acoustic guitars (both with a slide and without). His drone-based style was a characteristic of North Mississippi hill country blues rather than Mississippi Delta blues. Like other country blues musicians, he did not always adhere to 12- or 16-bar blues patterns, often adding extra beats according to his preference. He called this "Burnside style" and often commented that his backing musicians needed to be familiar with his style in order to be able to play along with him.Burnside collaborated in the late 1990s with The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion on the albums A Ass Pocket of Whiskey and Mr. Wizard. Consequently, he gained the attention of many within this underground music scene.The 2007 Samuel L. Jackson / Christina Ricci film, Black Snake Moan is infused with countless Burnside nods, including: the Reverend R. L. character.He passed away at St. Francis Hospital on September 1, 2005 at the age of 78