Sugar Blue

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Sugar Blue (born James Whiting in 1950) is a Grammy Award winning American blues harmonica player. Sugar Blue is best known for his harmonica work with The Rolling Stones, specifically on their hit single, "Miss You".

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[edit] Career

Sugar Blue was raised in Harlem, New York, where his mother was a singer and dancer at the Apollo Theater. He spent his childhood among the musicians and show people who knew his mother, including Billie Holiday, and decided that he wanted to be a performer.

Blue received his first harmonica from his aunt, and proceeded to hone his chops by wailing along with Bob Dylan and Stevie Wonder songs on the radio. He was soon to be influenced by the jazz musicians such as Dexter Gordon and Lester Young. Sugar Blue has used this background to his advantage, creating an ultra-modern blues style and sound.

Blue began his career as a street musician, and made his first recordings in 1975 with blues figures Brownie McGhee and Roosevelt Sykes. The following year he contributed to recordings by Victoria Spivey and Johnny Shines before moving to Paris on the advice of Memphis Slim.

While in France, Blue met Mick Jagger and members of the Rolling Stones, who invited Blue to join them in the studio. Besides his work on the Some Girls album, he can be heard on Emotional Rescue and Tattoo You. He appeared live with the group on numerous occasions and was offered the session spot, but he opted to return to the States. Before returning to the U.S. in 1982, Blue cut two albums: Crossroads, and From Paris to Chicago.

Blue's decision to return home, despite his growing renown as a session player, was spurred by his desire to work with and learn from the best blues harmonica players. Thus, he came to Chicago and proceeded to sit in with Big Walter Horton, Carey Bell, James Cotton and Junior Wells. Blue went on to spend two years touring with his friend and mentor Willie Dixon as part of the Chicago Blues All Stars before putting his own band together in 1983. He then jointly received the 1985 Grammy Award for his work on the Atlantic album, Blues Explosion, recorded live at the Montreux Jazz Festival.

He recorded on Dixon's Grammy-winning Hidden Charms album in 1989, and has performed on festival stages with artists like Muddy Waters, B. B. King, Art Blakey and Lionel Hampton. He sat in with Fats Domino, Ray Charles, and Jerry Lee Lewis for the Cinemax special, Fats Domino and Friends, and has appeared on screen and in the musical score of Alan Parker's Angel Heart, starring Robert De Niro.

In 2002, he featured on the Bo Diddley tribute album Hey Bo Diddley - A Tribute!, performing the song "Mona" (aka "I Need You Baby").

Blue has played and recorded with musicians ranging from Willie Dixon to Stan Getz to Frank Zappa to Johnny Shines to Bob Dylan. Blue performed his own version of the Stones' "Miss You" on his 1993 Alligator debut LP release, Blue Blazes. With his second release In Your Eyes, Sugar Blue also emerged as a songwriter. He released his latest CD, Code Blue, in 2007.

He has appeared across America, Europe and Africa at many festivals - Chicago, Zürich, The Hague, Antibes, Nice, Cannes, Montreal, Pistoia, Berne, etc.

Now living in Milan, Italy, Blue continues to appear in clubs and festivals around the world.

[edit] Origin of the name

"I needed a nickname... all the good ones were taken! You know 'Muddy Waters', 'Blind Lemon', 'Sonny Boy'... until one night a friend and I were leaving a concert - a Doc Watson concert - when somebody threw out of the window a box full of old 78s: I picked one up and it said "Sugar Blues" by Sidney Bechet...That's it! I thought it was perfect...so here I am..." Sugar Blue Bio. Retrieved on 2008-01-10.

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