From the Pages of the BluesNotes
Harmonica Fats - RIP
Written by Administrator Monday, 29 June 2009 22:07
By: Ken Condit
Article Reprint from the February 2000 BluesNotes
The name Harvey Blackston may not be well known, even in Southern California where he lived for over 50 years, but Blues fans in the Los Angeles area and many other parts of the country will immediately recognize the stage name Harmonica Fats. His harmonica playing, singing and songwriting entertained countless fans for decades and earned him high regards within the music industry. Thus, with the passing of Harmonica Fats on January 3rd this year, we mourn the loss of a tremendous talent who contributed greatly to the continuing Tradition of the Blues.
Originally from McDade, Louisiana, Fats was the eldest son of 13 children and spent much of his childhood working on his grandparents' farm. He would receive a new harmonica each Christmas and began to pick up the Blues from his grandparents' record collection, which included Peatie Wheatstraw, Blind Lemon Jefferson and Sonny Terry. Although his roots were in the rural South, Fats felt the lure of the City and by 1946, he had made his way to L. A. It was 10 years later that he began performing publicly, after he mastered the harmonica during a long rehabilitation period caused by a serious auto accident. He appeared with his own band under the name "Heavy Juice" until 1961 when he made the R&B charts with the original song, "Tore Up" and adopted the moniker Harmonica Fats.
Fats toured and recorded over the years with numerous artists while he developed his songwriting skills. His natural abilities also served him well as a studio musician backing up performers in a variety of musical styles. Colleagues were impressed with his great ear for music and his arranging skills.
To help make ends meet, Fats took a job with the Clorox Bleach Company that lasted until 1988. But, the career move that proved most rewarding was when he hooked up with Blues guitarist Bernie Pearl in the mid-1980s. By 1986, Fats was appearing regularly with the Bernie Pearl Band in the L. A. area and elsewhere. They entertained crowds at Portland's Waterfront Blues Festival in 1989 and 1991.
Fats' first recording with the Bernie Pearl Band was actually a demo tape they made. The 1990 cassette-only release is titled, "Live at the Cafe Lido", and also includes a guest appearance by the late Jazz and Blues violinist, Papa John Creach. It was at Cafe Lido in Newport Beach, California that Fats appeared regularly with Pearl for years. Harmonica Fats' first CD, "I Had To Get Nasty", was released in 1991 by Bee Bump Records and featured mostly electric Blues with the backing of the Bernie Pearl Band.
Despite leaving the rural life behind when he was young, Fats' roots were in Country Blues. "People sometimes overlook the fact that Fats was an authentic rural Blues man," Bernie Pearl told me during a phone conversation. "Even though he played different styles of music, he was as raw as any Bluesman from Mississippi or Louisiana." With the encouragement of his wife, Fats went back to those roots and joined with Pearl to record two acoustic CDs. The first, "Two Heads Are Better" (Bee Bump Records, 1995) received a W. C. Handy nomination for Best Acoustic Blues Recording. The follow-up recording, "Blow, Fat Daddy, Blow!" (Bee Bump Records, 1996) was dedicated to the memory of Fats' wife, a prominent civil rights activist, after her death from a long illness just prior to the CD's release. This recording also garnered a W. C. Handy nomination.
I don't recall the venue where I first saw Fats play and sing in Southern California, but I do recall almost instantly enjoying his performances. There was more there than his musical skills and energy. In our conversation, Pearl emphasized to me that "the overriding thing with Fats is that he was genuine." Honesty and sincerity go a long way in writing and playing the Blues, and listeners certainly felt this genuine nature coming through in his music. Fats combined energy, wit and natural God-given talent to become a true master of the Blues. "He was a great songwriter," Pearl also pointed out, "not just in his lyrics and music, but in the great variety of music that he wrote and arranged."
One cannot help being saddened by the fact that Harmonica Fats will perform and record no more; and, undoubtedly, his family and friends will miss their personal contact with him dearly. But, through his recordings and the people he influenced, he has left behind an enduring legacy that will keep his memory alive. Blow on, Fats.
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James "Thunderbird" Davis
Written by Greg Johnson Monday, 29 June 2009 22:07
By: Greg Johnson
Article Reprint from the April 2000 BluesNotes
Due to changing tastes and the advent of electrical instruments, a large portion of original Bluesmen were lost to the listening public for many years. The artists that roamed the Delta, the Piedmont and Texas had been sadly forgotten until a revival of popularity during the early 1960s, commencing with the Folk movement, brought them back to the forefront. It would seem impossible for that same type of oversight to occur in an era today when recordings are more widespread, yet that is exactly what happened with James "Thunderbird" Davis. A vocalist who worked with Guitar Slim, Joe Tex and Nappy Brown, Davis charted with a pair of hit singles for the Duke label and then disappeared and was believed to be dead, only to resurface again in the mid-1980s.
James Davis was born in Pritchard, Alabama (near Mobile), on November 10, 1938. As was common with a number of Blues and R&B vocalists, Davis was raised in a religious family and was first exposed to music by singing Gospel in church choirs. But the sounds of R&B had become strong for Davis by the late 1950s and a chance encounter with the flamboyant Guitar Slim forever changed his life.
Guitar Slim was performing in Mobile with the Lloyd Lambert Orchestra when the young Davis approached him and asked if it would be alright to sing a song before the actual show began. Given the opportunity, both Lambert and Guitar Slim were stunned by the youngster's rich baritone and offered him a job on the spot. For the next three years, until Slim's untimely death in 1959, Davis would serve as both valet and opening act for the guitarist and his band.
Guitar Slim is also credited with giving Davis his nickname, "Thunderbird". Slim was a notorious alcoholic and one night at their home base in Thibodeaux, Louisiana, the two decided to partake in a drinking contest. Slim drank whiskey but the younger vocalist chose "Thunderbird" wine because he could not afford anything stronger on his earnings. After consuming too much wine, Davis became extremely ill, and Slim had to take him to a hospital. Davis would never touch the wine again, but Slim refused to let Davis forget the incident, placing on him the moniker "Thunderbird" that stuck with him from that point onward.
After Guitar Slim's death, Davis was brought to Houston in 1961 by Don Robey to work for the Duke label. Assigned to odd jobs around the studio, James would also record demos of new songs for the label's artists. This was a method utilized to allow bands and singers to learn the songs while on the road in order to be prepared for recording when they returned to Houston. One of the people that Davis would perform this function for was Bobby Bland, working on many of his numbers such as "I Pity The Fool". Without much expectation, Robey would allow Davis to make his own recordings when not working on the demos. Accompanied by the label's bevy of session greats, such as pianist James Booker and guitarist Clarence Holiman, Davis surprised Robey by waxing two of the label's biggest singles of the 1960s: "Blue Monday" and "Your Turn To Cry". Both songs would go on to become Blues standards, recorded many times over by people like Z.Z. Hill, Little Milton and Otis Rush.
After several years with Duke, without seeing much return monetarily, Davis left the label in 1966. He took on working with performers like Joe Tex, 0.V. Wright and Albert Collins, once again returning to the role of warm-up performer. But by the mid-1970s, Davis became disenchanted with the music industry, giving it up almost entirely and started working as a laborer.
Over the next decade, Davis would work in a number of jobs, but the only singing he performed was in church. Sadly, during this time, the public appeared to have forgotten about James "Thunderbird" Davis. In 1982, Rounder Records released a compilation of recordings from the Duke label's heyday, "Angels In Houston". It included both the hits "Blue Monday" and "Your Turn To Cry". Unfortunately, the liner notes declared that Davis was deceased. But, to everyone's surprise, Davis attempted a comeback in 1984, fronting the late Z.Z. Hill's band. Alas, this effort found little success and Davis slipped back into obscurity.
Another four years went by until representatives from Black Top Records, including producer Hammond Scott and Davis' former bandmate Lloyd Lambert, went looking for him with the idea of bringing him out of retirement. The group discovered him working in a dog pound in Thibodeaux. He was so overjoyed at being reacquainted with Lambert that he signed a contract with the label and immediately went into the studio. An all-star collection of performers were put together for the session including, Anson Funderburgh, Earl King, Ron Levy, Grady Gaines, and old pals Lambert and Clarence Holiman. A stellar recording, "Check Out Time" was released in 1989 and included a wonderful reworking of "Your Turn To Cry", as well as brilliant new material like the title song and "What Else Is There To Do?".
Black Top would showcase Davis' resurrection on a number of occasions over the next few years. He worked as a featured performer at it's annual "Blues-A-Rama" event during the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. He also found session work on recordings by Carol Fran ("Soul Sensation") and Hubert Sumlin ("Healing Feeling").
Davis' successful return was short-lived however. On January 24, 1992, as he was laying down the final chords to "What Else Is There To Do?" at The Blues Saloon in St. Paul, Minnesota, the 53 year-old "Thunderbird" Davis suffered a heart attack and died onstage. His body was returned to Thibodeaux, Louisiana, where he was buried on the church grounds of St. Luke's, where he had been long-time parishioner and choir member. Scheduled to return to the studio just a few weeks later, Davis' voice had unfortunately been silenced prematurely.
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John Campbell
Written by Greg Johnson Monday, 29 June 2009 22:06
By: Greg Johnson
Article Reprint from the May 2000 BluesNotes
For some Blues musicians tales of mojos and gris-gris make for nice story lines behind their songs. For guitarist John Campbell though, they were a part of his life. A self-proclaimed hoodoo man, Campbell lived a lifetime full of tragedy and sadly succumbed just as his career was hitting its stride, at an altogether much too early age.
John Campbell was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, on January 20, 1952. The son of a construction worker, he was first exposed to string music at an early age by his grandmother, who played a Hawaiian-style lap steel guitar. Young John received his first guitar at the age of five and was quickly immersed with a desire to learn as much as he possibly could. As his family moved between Shreveport, Baton Rouge and East Texas, John sought out musicians to fulfill this hunger. He learned his lessons well, as he began playing professionally by the time he was 13, opening shows for Blues greats like Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, Son Seals and Albert Collins.
But, it was another passion that altered John Campbell's life permanently. As a teenager, John craved fast things. Especially cars and motorcycles. He'd enter local drag races and it was at one of these that he was involved in a near-fatal accident. Campbell suffered several broken ribs, a collapsed lung and lost his right eye. His face had to be reconstructed, a feat that required nearly 5,000 stitches and left him horribly scarred.
Campbell's recuperation from the accident took almost a full year. He spent most of this time in solitude and occupied his time with his guitar. It was during this recovery period, Campbell explained to "Offbeat" Magazine Blues historian Keith Spera, that he "first met the Blues." He tenaciously studied the music of Lightnin' Hopkins, John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters. Playing the guitar was an outlet for him; a method for reaching his inner self, his spirituality, and also to communicate with his dreams and nightmares.
At the age of 16, John Campbell left home with his family's blessing to seek his future as a musician. He lived as an itinerant Bluesman, playing wherever he could find an audience; mostly on street corners and at gas stations. He first traveled to New Orleans, which he viewed as a musical mecca, but he only stayed in most places long enough to make enough money to survive before moving on.
By 1985, he had moved to New York City, where his talent earned him work opening shows for some of the biggest names in Blues music as they passed through town. It was at one of these gigs that guitarist Ronnie Earl caught Campbell opening a show for Johnny Littlejohn. Fascinated by Campbell's growling vocals and deft playing, the two developed an instant friendship and Earl decided to produce an album for him.
The album, "A Man And His Blues", was released in 1989 on the German label CrossCut Records. Backed by Earl and seasoned Bluesmen Jerry Portnoy (harmonica), Per Hanson (drums) and Darrell Nulisch (vocals), and using an acoustic guitar with a single pick-up, it was truly a showcase of the musical styles Campbell had blended from those earlier influences of his recovery period. At the time the album did not receive much media attention in the United States, but it was nominated for a W.C. Handy Award. It also earned John an invitation to perform at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, where he became life-long friends with JazzFest creator Quint Davis.
Another person who was captured by Campbell's skills was talent manager Barbara "B.B." Becker, who also handled the career of Dr. John. After first witnessing Campbell's playing at a New York restaurant, and armed with a copy of "A Man And His Blues", Becker convinced Elektra Records to sign the rising star. In 1991, the first American John Campbell release was issued titled "One Believer". Well produced by Dennis Walker (best-known for his work with Robert Cray), it was full of the haunting sounds of hoodoo-based swamp guitar played on a 1934 National Steel that was Campbell's trademark. The success of the album did not change his life-style, though, as John continued to play whenever and wherever possible.
Campbell and his wife Dolly married that same year. His passion for motorcycles was still evident as the president of the local chapter of the Hell's Angels served as his best man, while Dr. John (a minister of his own temple) performed the service.
A second recording was issued in 1993, "Howlin' Mercy", which even further pursued his inner magic and demons to a greater extent. Critical acclaim followed and Campbell pushed himself even more, traveling to Europe on an extensive tour with Buddy Guy.
John Campbell suffered his entire life from poor health that was mostly a result of the drag racing accident as a teenager. Drug abuse also played a role, as did his nightmares, for he rarely slept, believing that he may never wake again. After his European tour, he entered into the studio laying down tracks with Double Trouble bassist Tommy Shannon. It would be a project that would never be finished. On the night of June 13, 1993, John Campbell died in his sleep of heart failure at the age of 41. His worst fear had come true, leaving behind his widow Dolly and their 5-month-old daughter, Paris.
John Campbell's body was cremated along with personal items and talismans from his family and friends to help him rest in peace. A memorial service was held on June 17, 1993, with Dr. John delivering the eulogy. His urn was then ridden home on a motorcycle by a procession of Hells Angels, in a manner that his wife said would be just as he wanted it.
A new CD was made available in early 2000, featuring unreleased tracks from a session recorded prior to his Elektra contract. Titled, "Tyler Texas Sessions", the CD is a compilation of Campbell working an acoustic guitar on personal standard Blues favorites by greats like Muddy Waters, Lightnin' Hopkins and Elmore James.
His music will mark his legacy. Campbell's haunting slide work on his steel-bodied guitar will forever bring envisions of the mystical and spiritual world he possessed. It will also serve as a sad epitaph to the brilliance that John Campbell held and the rest of the world will never know.
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Magic Sam
Written by Administrator Monday, 29 June 2009 22:06
By: Greg Johnson
Article Reprint from the September 2000 BluesNotes
August 1969 may bring to mind the grandeur of the Woodstock Arts and Music Festival in upstate New York whenever you ask somebody with basic music knowledge to name an event of that year. It's pretty hard to ignore an event of such magnitude which featured so many prolific artists of the day. But, in the Blues world, August 1969 also marked an extraordinary festival of its own, two weeks earlier in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The 1969 Ann Arbor Blues Festival was a conglomeration of the greatest Blues musicians, past, present and future. The line-up was phenomenal: Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Big Boy Crudup, Otis Rush, B.B. King, T-Bone Walker, Freddy King, Lightnin' Hopkins, Charlie Musselwhite, James Cotton, Jimmy Dawkins, Clifton Chenier, Big Joe Williams, Roosevelt Sykes, Luther Allison and Big Mama Thornton. But, the one musician who stood tallest over the weekend may have been the least known, at least outside of Chicago.
Magic Sam was scheduled to take the stage at 3:00 p.m., Sunday afternoon. But, when his time came, he was nowhere to be found. Charlie Musselwhite, who was originally set to follow, took to the stage in his place. By the time Musselwhite finished, Sam had arrived, but with only his bassist Buffalo Bruce Barlow. Missing a drummer, he was fortunate to recruit Sam Lay to fill the void. As the three stepped to the stage, the crowd of 10,000 fans were leery of what to expect from this individual who should have been on an hour earlier. But, by the time he had finished the opening number, Freddy King's classic instrumental, "San-Ho-Zay", the word was out and the festival grounds were abuzz with the name of Magic Sam.
Like so many Blues performers before him who found their fame in Chicago, Magic Sam was originally from the Mississippi Delta. He was born Samuel Maghett near Grenada, Mississippi, on February 14, 1937 into a sharecropping household. Though no one in his family had a musical background, young Sam was fascinated by the sounds he heard played at local house parties and picnics. He made his own instruments, first the crude diddley-bows of baling wire nailed to the side of a house and then his own makeshift guitars from cigar boxes. By the time his family relocated to Chicago in 1950, Sam was already a proficient guitarist. It wasn't long before he began to play professionally, first with the gospel group The Morning View Special and then with the renowned Homesick James Band.
With encouragement and help from his uncle, harmonica player James "Shakey Jake" Harris, the teenaged Sam (working under the pseudonym Good Rocking Sam) put together his first band in 1955 which included neighbor Syl Johnson. By combining the styles of the country Bluesmen he heard in the Delta with the ferocity of Muddy Waters' urban beats and B.B. King's single-string guitar patterns, Sam helped to develop what was to become known as the West Side sound. Along with Otis Rush and Buddy Guy, the West Side became the locale of the next generation of great Chicago Bluesmen.
The West Side artists became highly popular attracting audiences to the city's clubs and eventually catching the attention of bassist and talent scout, Willie Dixon. Despite Dixon's recommendations, he could not convince his employers at Chess Records to take a chance on Sam, Rush or Guy. So he approached Eli Toscano, a small-time gambler and owner of the foundering label Cobra who agreed to work with the young Bluesmen.
In 1957, Sam entered the Cobra studio along with Dixon, pianist Little Brother Montgomery, drummer Billie Stepney and Syl Johnson's brother Mack Thompson on bass. Eli wanted to name Sam something more traditional than Good Rocking and suggested Sad Sam. Thompson suggested Magic Sam, as a play of words on the name Maghett, and the moniker stuck. The group set about recording Sam's first number titled "All Your Love", which worked around a riff lifted from Ray Charles' single "Lonely Avenue". The mixture of Sam's minimalist guitar patterns and his intense high-pitched vocals made the song a Blues classic and built a base that he would use for several more singles released by Cobra. Over the next two years, Magic Sam would find success with numbers like "21 Days In Jail", "Easy Baby" and "Call Me If You Need Me" (recorded with Shakey Jake).
Unfortunately, despite the local success that Cobra had attained with the West Side guitarists, it had not found much recognition outside of Chicago. By 1960, Cobra had closed its doors. Otis Rush and Buddy Guy soon found employment with Chess, but Magic Sam's life took a different path as he was drafted into the Army. His military career also took a turn for the worse, as Sam deserted shortly after a few weeks. He returned to Chicago and recorded a handful of sides for the Chief label, including a stellar version of Fats Domino's "Every Night About This Time". Unfortunately, these releases also saw little recognition outside of Chicago. Fate took another turn when the Army caught up with Sam, sentencing him to military prison for his desertion.
Sam received a dishonorable discharge from the Army in 1961. Again, he returned to Chicago and renewed his work with Willie Dixon. He recorded a cover of "Hi Heel Sneakers" for CBS and a few sides for Crash Records over the next couple years, but Sam wanted to release a full-length album, not just singles. He caught the attention of Bob Koester, the owner of Delmark Records, in 1967, who was riding high on the success of Junior Wells' masterful "Hoodoo Man Blues" LP. Koester signed him to a contract and Magic Sam was to receive his wish for an album in a big way.
Koester brought Sam to the studio that July and for a second time in October. Using his current working band of bassist Earnest Johnson, drummer Odie Payne Jr and Shakey Jake, Sam also brought along Otis Rush, and sideman Mighty Joe Young, as second guitarist. There was also a desire to include a pianist and the great Otis Spann had agreed to participate in the sessions. When Otis failed to appear, Koester asked a piano playing employee of his named Per Notini to sit in. Since Notini was originally from Sweden, he was given the nickname "Stockholm Slim". Unable to make all the sessions Johnson was replaced by Mack Thompson on three numbers and Odie Payne's own son filled in for his missing father. During the recordings, a problem arose where the sound just didn't come across right to Koester and Sam. The problem appeared to be that Shakey Jake's harmonica did not fit and his tracks were removed from the final mix.
The album, "West Side Soul", featured Magic Sam at his greatest potential, covering songs ranging from J.B. Lenoir's "Mama, Mama Talk To Your Daughter" to a magnificent version of the Robert Johnson classic "Sweet Home Chicago'' (which also was intended to be the original title for the LP). It would also feature Sam's skills at songwriting with masterful numbers like "I Need You So Bad" and the instrumental "Lookin' Good" which clearly defined the whole West Side sound.
Magic Sam returned to the studio a year later, this time joined by sax player Eddie Shaw from the Howlin' Wolf Band. The follow-up LP, "Black Magic", was another stellar recording for Delmark, including such songs as "You Belong To Me" and a fiery cover of Freddy King's "San-Ho-Zay".
Both releases garnered critical acclaim and Magic Sam began to find himself playing in Rock venues such as the Fillmore in San Francisco, that had proved successful for fellow Bluesmen like B.B. King, Albert King and Freddy King. It also earned his spot at the 1969 Ann Arbor Blues Festival. His appearance at that event took the audience by storm and it appeared that Magic Sam was on the verge of breaking into potential worldwide crossover success. But the Ann Arbor show would prove to be his coda.
On December 1, 1969, Magic Sam Maghett suffered a heart attack and died. He was only 32.
Over the ensuing years, there have been numerous releases of Magic Sam's material, collecting live performances and his earlier singles for Cobra and the lesser labels. Of these, the most notable is the "Magic Sam Live" recording, which contained an early gig performed at the Alex Club, a West Side venue, along with the swan song performance at the Ann Arbor festival in 1969.
Magic Sam was inducted into The Blues Foundation's Hall of Fame in 1982. Both "West Side Soul" and "Black Magic" also achieved this honor as they entered into the Hall as "Classics of Blues Recordings". Prematurely taken from this world, Magic Sam may have had the talent to become the greatest exponent of West Side Blues, perhaps even eclipsing both Otis Rush and Buddy Guy. We will never know, yet more than 30 years following his death, the music of Magic Sam still remains vital and alive to this day.
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James "Son" Thomas
Written by Greg Johnson Monday, 29 June 2009 22:05
By: Greg Johnson
Article Reprint from the October 2000 BluesNotes
Blues music is a true expression of folk art, but in the case of James "Son" Thomas, it was only one form of his creative genius that helped him gain recognition. The Blues were always present in his life, but it wasn't until his "discovery" in the mid-1960's by William Ferris that they truly became central to his financial income. Ferris' documentations of Thomas' life in both book and on film helped to gain him worldwide attention which took him to Europe and an encounter with a president.
James Thomas entered the world of the Delta on October 14, 1926 in Eden, Mississippi. He never really knew his father and was raised by his maternal grandparents, who also gave him his lifelong nickname "Son" as a term of endearment. Every Saturday, the family traveled to Leland, Mississippi to visit James' mother and sister.
As a young boy, Son developed two interests that would play a significant role for the remainder of his life: music and sculpture. His sculpture was made from clay he collected from banks of the nearby Yazoo River and Son had a fondness for creating animal forms. He also enjoyed making trucks from the clay, which earned him the nickname "Ford". The art took a darker side, though, when he decided to play a joke on his grandfather who had a deep fear of the paranormal. He shaped a frightful skull, complete with teeth made out of corn and placed it in a dark location that would become fully lit when his grandfather turned on a light. The effect was terrifying and Son would go on to shape these skulls the rest of his life, often using actual teeth that he would collect from local dentists. His clay art alone would have made Thomas' career as a folk artist. Many galleries, including those in New York, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. held shows displaying his work.
Of course, Son's other interest was music, particularly the Blues he heard listening to his Uncle Joe Cooper. Other influences came from family records, featuring local Delta artists like Tommy McClennan, Big Boy Crudup and Skip James. His uncle taught him a few chords on the guitar and Son sought the instrument every chance he could. His uncle would charge the youngster to play, so Son would wait until he would leave for work to practice without his uncle's knowledge. He eventually was able to earn enough money working in the cottonfields to purchase his own guitar from Sears & Roebuck.
As he grew older, Son began to frequent juke joints in Yazoo City, where he was exposed to artists like Rice Miller and Elmore James. Elmore would allow the youngster to play along, thus giving Son the opportunity to learn from one of the most renowned guitarists in Blues history. These lessons also paved the way for Son to start working alongside his uncle at house parties for which he was paid a dollar a night.
Over the ensuing years, Son Thomas built a repertoire of songs that would stay with him his entire life. Numbers like "Catfish Blues" and "Cairo Blues" would become synonymous with his performances. It was said that he had played "Cairo Blues" so often that this was how he earned yet another nickname: "Cairo" Son Thomas
Unfortunately, as was the case with many fine musicians in the Delta, Son Thomas' work was unknown to the rest of the world. Thomas made his living for the majority of his life as a grave digger, and later when health woes began to take their toll he worked in a furniture store.
In 1967, researcher William Ferris "discovered" Thomas in Leland, Mississippi, where the musician had made his home since 1961. Thomas would become a major focus in the works of Ferris, documented extensively in his book "Blues From The Delta", and in five films: "Mississippi Delta Blues" (1969), "James 'Son Ford' Thomas: Delta Blues Singer" (1970), "Give My Poor Heart Ease" (1975), "I Ain't Lying" (1975) and "Made In Mississippi" (1975).
Through the exposure Ferris brought to him, Son Thomas found himself a sudden attraction at Blues festivals around the world, billed as one of the Delta's last living originals. He made his first trip to Europe in 1981 as a member of the celebrated American Folk Blues Festival tour and he made several more trips across the Atlantic during his lifetime and recording a handful of albums, most notably: "Highway 61 Blues", "Son Down On The Delta", "Good Morning Little School Girl", "Delta Blues Classics" and "The James 'Son' Thomas Album". He has also been featured on a number of compilation recordings as well, most recently on the Evidence reissue of "Living Country Blues".
In 1981 the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C., held an exhibit displaying the folk art of the American South. The sculptures of James Thomas were a prominent feature of the show. One of the attendees at the show was First Lady Nancy Reagan, whom Son would have his photo taken with, which he proudly displayed in his small shotgun home thereafter. This encounter with the First Lady also worked into Son being asked to perform at a Republican Party fundraiser in Mississippi in 1983 which featured President Ronald Reagan as the keynote speaker. Son Thomas was paid $100 for his appearance.
Son Thomas suffered from poor health his entire adult life, which gave him the appearance of being much older than he actually was. Back pains and emphysema were constant plagues. In 1981, he was accidentally shot in the stomach and in 1991 he had surgery for a brain tumor. But, despite his fragile condition, Son Thomas continued to perform. In May of 1993, he suffered a stroke that would be the fatal event to Thomas' unfortunate health. He would never leave the hospital in Greenville, Mississippi. He died there on June 26, 1993 following a heart attack. James "Son" Thomas was only 66.
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