David "Honeyboy" Edwards

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In the early 21st century, living links to the immortal Robert Johnson were few. After the passing of Robert Jr. Lockwood in 2006, David "Honeyboy" Edwards was generally regarded as the last of the Delta bluesmen who had actually played and traveled with Johnson himself, and with Edwards' death in Chicago in August 2011 at age 96, that last link passed into history. For much of his life, Edwards was something of an underappreciated figure, but not in his latter years -- his slashing, Delta-drenched guitar and gruff vocals were as authentic as Delta blues ever got.

Edwards had it tough growing up in Mississippi, but his blues prowess (his childhood pals included Tommy McClennan and Robert Petway) impressed Big Joe Williams enough to take him under his wing. Rambling around the South, Honeyboy experienced the great Charley Patton and played often with Johnson. Musicologist Alan Lomax came to Clarksdale, Mississippi in 1942 and captured Edwards for Library of Congress-sponsored posterity. Commercial prospects for the guitarist were scant, however -- a 1951 78 for Artist Record Co., "Build a Cave" (as Mr. Honey), and four 1953 sides for Chess that laid unissued until "Drop Down Mama" turned up 17 years later on an anthology constituted the bulk of his early recorded legacy, although Edwards was in Chicago from the mid-'50s on.

The guitarist met young harpist/blues aficionado Michael Frank in 1972. Four years later, they formed the Honeyboy Edwards Blues Band to break into Chicago's then-fledgling North Side club scene; they also worked as a duo (and continued to do so on occasion for many years thereafter). When Frank inaugurated his Earwig label, he enlisted Honeyboy and his longtime pals Sunnyland Slim, Big Walter Horton, Floyd Jones, and Kansas City Red to cut a rather informal album, Old Friends, as his second release in 1979. In 1992, Earwig assembled Delta Bluesman, a stunning combination of unexpurgated Library of Congress masters and then-recent performances that showed Edwards had lost none of his blues fire. He remained active up through the first decade of the 21st century, collaborating with Henry Townsend (who died in 2006), Pinetop Perkins (another legendary bluesman from Edwards' generation who died in 2011), and Lockwood on Last of the Great Mississippi Delta Bluesmen: Live in Dallas, which won the 2008 Grammy Award for Best Traditional Blues Album. David "Honeyboy" Edwards also received a lifetime achievement Grammy Award in 2010.

from Wikipedia:

David "Honeyboy" Edwards (June 28, 1915 – August 29, 2011) was a Delta blues guitarist and singer from the American South. Edwards was the last Delta bluesman before his 2011 death.

Life and career

Edwards was born in Shaw, Mississippi. Edwards was 14 years old when he left home to travel with bluesman Big Joe Williams, beginning the life as an itinerant musician which he led throughout the 1930s and 1940s. He performed with and was a friend of blues musician Robert Johnson. Honeyboy was present on the night Johnson drank poisoned whiskey which killed him, and his story has become the definitive version of Johnson's demise. Edwards knew and played with many of the leading bluesmen in the Mississippi Delta: Charley Patton, Tommy Johnson, and Johnny Shines.

He described the itinerant bluesman's life:

Folklorist Alan Lomax recorded Edwards in Clarksdale, Mississippi in 1942 for the Library of Congress. Edwards recorded 15 album sides of music. The songs included "Wind Howlin' Blues" and "The Army Blues". He did not record again commercially until 1951, when he recorded "Who May Be Your Regular Be" for Arc Records under the name of Mr Honey. Edwards claims to have written several well-known blues songs including "Long Tall Woman Blues" and "Just Like Jesse James". His discography for the 1950s and 1960s amounts to nine songs from seven sessions. From 1974 to 1977, he recorded material for a full length LP, I've Been Around, released in 1978 on the independent Trix Records label by producer/ethnomusicologist Peter B. Lowry.

Edwards authored the book, The World Don't Owe Me Nothin', published in 1997 by Chicago Review Press. The book recounts his life from childhood, his journeys through the South and his arrival in Chicago in the early 1950s. A companion CD by the same title was released by Earwig Music shortly afterwards. His long association with Earwig Music and Michael Frank spawned many late career albums on a variety of independent labels from the 1980s on. He has also recorded at a church-turned-studio in Salina, Kansas and released albums on the APO record label. Edwards continued the rambling life he describes in his autobiography as he still toured the world well into his 90s.

On July 17, 2011, his manager Michael Frank announced that Edwards would be retiring due to ongoing health issues.

On August 29, 2011, Edwards died at his home, of congestive heart failure, at around 3 a.m. According to events listings on the Metromix Chicago website, Edwards had been scheduled to perform at noon that day, at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Chicago's Millennium Park.

Film

In the 1991 documentary The Search for Robert Johnson, Edwards recounts stories about Johnson, including his murder.

The story of Edwards' life is told in the 2010 award winning film "Honeyboy and the History of the Blues" from Free Range Pictures, directed by Scott Taradash. The film features stories of Honeyboy's life from picking cotton as a sharecropper to traveling the world sharing his music. Artists who appear in the film include Keith Richards, Robert Cray, Joe Perry, Lucinda Williams, BB King, Big Joe Williams and Ace Atkins.

Edwards appeared in the 2007 film, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story.

Awards

1996: Inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame1998: Keeping the Blues Alive Award in literature for The World Don't Owe Me Nothing2002: National Endowment for the Arts, National Heritage Fellowship Award2005: Acoustic Blues-Artist of the Year (26th W.C. Handy Blues Awards)2007: Acoustic Artist of the Year (The Blues Music Awards)2008: Grammy Award; Best Traditional Blues Album for Last of the Great Mississippi Delta Bluesmen: Live In Dallas2010: Lifetime Achievement Award, Grammy; Mississippi Governor's Awards For Excellence in the Arts2010: Lifetime Achievement Award, National Guitar Museum

His albums White Windows, The World Don't Owe Me Nothin', Mississippi Delta Blues Man, and a recent album in which he appears with Robert Lockwood, Jr., Henry Townsend and Pinetop Perkins, Last Of The Great Mississippi Delta Bluesmen: Live In Dallas, were all nominated for the W. C. Handy Award. The latter album also won a Grammy Award in 2008.