List of Piedmont blues musicians
The Piedmont blues (also known as Piedmont fingerstyle) is a type of blues music characterized by a unique fingerpicking method on the guitar in which a regular, alternating-thumb bassline pattern supports a melody using treble strings. The result is comparable in sound to a ragtime piano. The Piedmont blues typically refers to a greater area than Piedmont, which refers to the East Coast of the United States from about Richmond, Virginia to Atlanta, Georgia. Piedmont blues musicians come from this area, as well as Maryland, Delaware, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Florida. It was made popular in the early 20th century. Below is a list of Piedmont blues musicians.
A
- Pink Anderson – (February 12, 1900 – October 12, 1974) Born in Laurens, South Carolina, Anderson was an early country blues guitarist and singer who performed Piedmont blues. He recorded in the late 20s with guitarist/singer Blind Simmie Dooley (from Greenville, SC). Anderson had a long career as a medicine show performer, his last jobs being with Leo Kahdot's ("Chief Thundercloud") show. He was later picked up by the "blues revivalists" of the 1960s: Many of his recordings from that time have been released by Prestige Records.
B
- Memphis Willie B. – (November 4, 1911 – October 5, 1993)
- Etta Baker – (March 31, 1913 – September 23, 2006) Born in Caldwell County, North Carolina, Baker a country blues guitarist, banjo player and singer who performed Piedmont blues. In the 1990s she released two solo albums, one for Rounder Records. In 2004 Music Maker Records released some recording she did with Taj Mahal in 1956 and 1998.
- Ed Bell – (May 1905 – 1960, 1965 or 1966) Born in Fort Deposit, Alabama, Bell released work under his own name and billed as Sluefoot Joe and Barefoot Bill from Alabama.
- Scrapper Blackwell – (February 21, 1903 – October 27, 1962) Born in Syracuse, North Carolina as Francis Hillman Blackwell, Scrapper Blackwell performed acoustic Piedmont blues and an early exponent of Chicago blues who worked closely with pianist Leroy Carr. He also backed singer Black Bottom McPhail. Document Records has issued most of his work in three volumes.
- Blind Blake – (c. 1895 – 1937) Born in Newport News, Virginia, guitarist and singer Blind Blake played almost every form of music imaginable. He performed early ragtime on guitar, Piedmont blues, country blues, Delta blues and Chicago blues. A musician of great importance, he recorded frequently for Paramount Records.
- Gabriel Brown – (1910–1972) Born in Florida, Brown was an original country blues guitarist and singer. He was discovered in the 1930s by folk music researchers Zora Neale Hurston and Alan Lomax, and had a career lasting several decades, mainly in New York City, recording for Joe Davis.
- Precious Bryant – (January 4, 1942 – January 12, 2013) Born in Talbot County, Georgia, Bryant was captured in 1969 in one of George Mitchell's field recordings of folk blues music. She subsequently featured in blues festivals and, late in life, recorded two well-received albums of blues for Terminus Records.
- Barbecue Bob
C
- Carolina Slim (Edward P. Harris) (August 22, 1923 – October 22, 1953)
- Cephas & Wiggins (John Cephas & Phil Wiggins)
- Cortelia Clark
- Jaybird Coleman – (May 20, 1896 – January 28, 1950) Born in Gainesville, Alabama, Coleman was a country blues harmonica player, guitarist and singer who performed early Piedmont blues and harmonica blues active most in the 1930s. His career fizzled out and he was left to perform as a street act in Alabama. Document Records has issued a compilation of all of his recordings.
- Elizabeth Cotten
- Floyd Council – (September 2, 1911 – May 9, 1976) Born in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, was an American blues guitarist and singer. He became a well-known practitioner of the Piedmont blues sound from that area, popular throughout the southeastern region of the US in the 1930s. Floyd began his musical career on the streets of Chapel Hill in the 1920s, performing with two brothers, Leo and Thomas Strowd as "The Chapel Hillbillies". He recorded twice for ARC at sessions with Blind Boy Fuller in the mid-1930s.
D
E
- Archie Edwards (September 4, 1918 – June 18, 1998) Born in Union Hall, Virginia, he released Blues 'n Bones in 1989.
F
H
- John Dee Holeman (born 1929, Orange County, North Carolina)
- Frank Hovington
- Peg Leg Howell – (March 5, 1888 – August 11, 1968) Born in Eatonton, Georgia as Joshua Barnes Howell, Howell was an amputee missing one leg who taught himself to play guitar and sing. He performed acoustic country blues in the Piedmont blues style, spending most of his career in Atlanta, Georgia. From 1926 or so until 1929 he recorded for Columbia Records, then fell off into obscurity shortly after (eventually losing his other leg to diabetes).
- Mississippi John Hurt
J
- Bo Weavil Jackson
- John Jackson
- Luke Jordan – (January 28, 1892 – June 25, 1952) Born in Bluefield, West Virginia, Jordan was a country blues guitarist of the Piedmont blues and East Coast blues variety who spent most of his career in Lynchburg, Virginia. Though not many recordings survive of his, Jordan was undeniably a major early influence on musicians in the Piedmont style.
L
- Charley Lincoln – March 11, 1900 – September 28, 1963 Born in Lithonia, Georgia as Charlie Hicks, Lincoln was an acoustic country and Piedmont blues guitarist and vocalist. He was the older brother of Robert "Barbecue Bob" Hicks, with whom he performed from the 1920s on into the 1950s. He made several recordings, some for Columbia Records.
M
P
S
- Drink Small, born in Bishopville, South Carolina in January 28, 1933.
T
W
See also
References
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