Robert Belfour

All Music Guide:

Robert 'Wolfman' Belfour is a little-known but very powerful blues guitarist and singer based in Memphis, Tennessee. Born to sharecropper parents on a farm in Holly Springs, Mississippi, he began playing guitar in the late '40s after the death of his father who left the instrument to him. He learned by emulating the sounds of such greats as John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, and his idol, Howlin Wolf, as they were being broadcast on his mother's battery-operated radio. He was also influenced to some extent by his neighbor, Junior Kimbrough. Belfour's style is deeply-rooted in the sounds of his North Mississippi birthplace. It is a highly rhythmic and riff-oriented type of playing that can also be heard in the work of other players from the region, like Jessie Mae Hemphill, R.L. Burnside, and the late Fred Mcdowell.

Belfour moved to Memphis in 1968 and started playing on Beale street in the early 80s at the suggestion of his wife. He was recorded by musicologist David Evans in 1994 for the German-based Hot Fox label, playing eight songs on a 20-song compilation, The Spirit Lives On, Deep South Country Blues and Spirituals in the 1990s. The record also features selections from veteran barrelhouse piano player and long-time Memphis resident Mose Vinson, who is also a native of Holly Springs. Although Belfour is virtually unkown in the United States, he makes yearly trips to Europe to perform for enthusiastic and very appreciative crowds who have a deep reverence for authentic country blues, releasing What's Wrong with You in mid-2000.

Wikipedia:

Robert "Wolfman" Belfour (born September 11, 1940, Red Banks, Mississippi, United States) is an American blues musician. His father, Grant Belfour taught him the guitar at a young age and he continued his tutelage in the blues from musicians Otha Turner, R. L. Burnside, and Junior Kimbrough. Kimbrough, in particular, had a profound influence on him. His music is deeply rooted in Mississippi Hill Country traditions, in contrast to those of delta blues. His playing is characterized by a deeply percussive attack and alternate tunings.

His father died when Belfour was thirteen, and his music was relegated to what free time he had, as his energy went to helping his mother provide for the family. In 1959, he married Noreen Norman and moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where he would work in construction for the next 35 years.

In the 1980s, Belfour began playing on Beale Street and in 1994 he had eight songs featured on David Evans's compilation album, The Spirit Lives On, Deep South Country Blues and Spirituals in the 1990s, released by the German Hot Fox label. This led him to Fat Possum Records and his first album What's Wrong With You, released in 2000.

The album, Pushin' My Luck, followed in 2003 to a positive critical review.