King Biscuit Boy

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King Biscuit Boy was the stage name of Richard Alfred Newell (9 March 1944 Hamilton, Ontario - 5 January 2003, Hamilton, Ontario) a Canadian blues musician.

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[edit] Career

Newell played guitar and sang, but was most noted for his harmonica playing. His stage name was taken from the King Biscuit Flour Hour, an early American blues broadcast. He was given the name by Ronald "Ronnie" Hawkins, a pioneering rock and roll musician, while he was part of Hawkins' back-up band.

Newell reportedly started his career by stealing his first harmonica (Marine Band, key of B) from a joke shop near his home on Hamilton Mountain, Hamilton, Ontario.[1]

Newell played with The Barons (later renamed Son Richard and the Chessmen) from 1961 to 1965, followed by a stint with The Midknights and in the summer of 1969 helped to form And Many Others, which was Ronnie Hawkins' backing band at that time. After one LP and several US appearances, Hawkins fired the entire band in early 1970[2], upon which the members, including Newell, formed themselves into their own band, which they named Crowbar. Newell recorded an album with Crowbar, then embarked on a solo career, although he played with Crowbar off and on throughout his career.

After leaving Crowbar, he signed a major American deal with Paramount/Epic. Seven solo albums followed, along with two Juno nominations (the Juno Awards are the Canadian equivalent of the US Grammy Awards).[3]

Newell released his last album in early 2003 at Race Records, an independent record label in Hamilton, Ontario. It was a collaboration with sax player Sonny Del-Rio (a former Crowbar bandmate and long-standing friend) entitled "Two Hound Blues". The album is a combination of six lost tracks from the 1981 King Biscuit Boy album, "Blues Biscuits" and the 1991 Sonny Del-Rio effort, "40 Years of Rock & Roll and all I got's the Blues", which was recorded in 2002.[4]

He was the first Canadian blues artist to chart on the Billboard Hot 100 in the U.S., plus Rolling Stone called him "legendary".[citation needed]

King Biscuit Boy has played with artists like Muddy Waters, Joe Cocker, Janis Joplin, and his fans include Keith Richards and Paul McCartney.[citation needed]

In an interesting sidenote, although Newell was a hardcore bluesman, Blake 'Kelly Jay' Fordham (a former Crowbar bandmate and friend) recalls that Newell had a soft spot in his heart for 1950s doo-wop music. "We'd do a medley, four chords in F, and see how many songs we could fit into it; stuff by Johnnie & Joe -- Over the Mountain -- and You Belong to Me, or Talk to Me, by Little Willie John. Each week we'd try to best ourselves, see who could come up with more. He would always find the most obscure stuff." [5]

[edit] Health and Death

Newell fought repeated battles with alcohol abuse throughout his life. Poor health due to alcoholism stunted his career through the 1990s. The bright spot in this time period was his release of the album "Urban Blues Re: Newell" in 1995. Newell succumbed to the disease at his home in Hamilton, Ontario, on 5 January 2003, just two months short of his sixtieth birthday.[6]

[edit] Legacy

A couple of months after his death, friends of Newell held a benefit show at a downtown Hamilton, Ontario club, to create a trust fund in his name. More than 100 musicians from across the country showed up to play at the first annual "Blues With A Feeling" benefit show. The club was reportedly packed with more than 700 fans. The show was so successful that "The Friends of Richard Newell" has held one every year since, with the money raised going to a music scholarship fund at Mohawk College of Applied Arts and Technology in Hamilton, Ontario.[7]

[edit] Discography

  • Official Music (as King Biscuit Boy and Crowbar) (1970, Daffodil; 1996, Stony Plain)
  • Gooduns (1974, Daffodil; 1996, Stony Plain)
  • King Biscuit Boy" (AKA The Brown Derby Album) - Epic 1974
  • Mouth of Steel (1979, UK, Red Lightning; 1982, Canada, Stony Plain)
  • Badly Bent (The Best of King Biscuit Boy) (1982, Daffodil)
  • King Biscuit Boy AKA Richard Newell (1988, Stony Plain)
  • Urban Blues Re: Newell (1995, Blue Wave; 1995, Stony Plain)

[edit] Quotation

“ Newell is the Sonny Boy Williamson of the Great White North. ”

—Tommy Tearaway, [1]






[edit] References

  1. ^ Welcome to Race Records - Richard Newell
  2. ^ Crowbar
  3. ^ Welcome to Race Records - Richard Newell
  4. ^ Welcome to Race Records - Richard Newell
  5. ^ Rockingham, Graham, "Kelly Jay Remembers King Biscuit Boy" Hamilton Spectator 31 May 2007
  6. ^ allmusic
  7. ^ Rockingham, Graham, "Kelly Jay Remembers King Biscuit Boy" Hamilton Spectator 31 May 2007

[edit] External links