David "Honeyboy" Edwards 1915-2011
Sadly, we report that our friend David "Honeyboy" Edwards died Monday morning, Aug. 29th. He was 96.
Honeyboy was a true blues legend and was the last performing
bluesman
of a generation that was among the first to record blues music.
Our own APO Records recorded Honeyboy in what was one of the very
first
sessions at our Blue Heaven Studios. The resulting disc - Shake 'Em
On
Down - is one of our proudest documentations of what pure,
undiluted,
raw blues is. In fact, artists like Honeyboy are the real premise
behind the creation of APO and Blue Heaven. Honeyboy performed at
our
very first Blues Masters at the Crossroads concerts in 1998 and
again
at the 12th annual in 2009. Once again, it's him and those very few
like him that serve as the epitome of what we're trying to showcase
each October with the Blues Masters shows.
With the passing earlier this year of Pinetop Perkins, the sting of
Honeyboy's death is especially profound as it concerns our loss of
living blues history. Honeyboy and Pinetop were the end of the road
as
it concerns bluesmen with links to the origins of recordings.
They're
among the last with ties to sharecropping, who picked cotton, who
hoboed trains - the last to live a life reminiscent of many of the
themes we so strongly associate with classic blues.
Edwards was born June 28, 1915 in Shaw,
Mississippi. Of his
earliest musical inspiration, Edwards says in his autobiography
The
World
Don't Owe 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. Listening to Tommy, that's when I really
learned
something
about how to play guitar."
Edwards' life has been intertwined with almost every major blues
legend,
including Robert Johnson, Charley Patton, Big Joe Williams, Rice
"Sonny
Boy Williamson" Miller, Howlin' Wolf, Peetie Wheatstraw,
Sunnyland
Slim,
Lightnin' Hopkins, Big Walter, Little Walter, Magic Sam, Muddy
Waters
and on
and on.
In 1942, Alan Lomax recorded Edwards in Clarksdale, Mississippi,
for
the
Library of Congress. He recorded 15 sides of Edwards' music.
Edwards
didn't
record again commercially until 1951, when he cut "Who May Your
Regular
Be" for Arc Records. He also recorded "Build A Cave" as
"Mr. Honey" for Artist.
Moving to Chicago in the early '50s, Edwards played small clubs
and
street
corners with Floyd Jones, Johnny Temple and Kansas City Red. In
'53, he
recorded several songs for Chess that remained un-issued until
"Drop
Down
Mama" was included in an anthology release.
Edwards began an association with Earwig Records in 1979 when he
and his friends Sunnyland Slim, Kansas City Red, Floyd Jones and
Big
Walter
Horton recorded Old Friends for the label. Earwig also released
Edwards'
Library of Congress performances along with more recent
recordings as
part of Delta
Bluesman in 1992.
Visitation will be Thursday September 1 from
6:00 pm to 9:00 pm, with
an open mic for comments by his friends and fans from 7:00 to
8:00 pm
at the funeral home. Services will be private on Friday
September 2.
McCullough Funeral & Cremation Services
851 E. 75th St.
Chicago, IL 60619
Phone: (773) 488-8900