News & Updates from Memphis in May
The Blues Music world has lost a legend.
Grammy-winning Blues musician David "Honeyboy" Edwards, believed to be the oldest surviving Delta bluesman died early Monday in his Chicago home. He was 96. "Honeyboy" played the Beale Street Music Festival several times over the years and his last performance at the festival was in 2007. Born in 1915 in Shaw, Miss., Edwards learned the guitar growing up and started playing professionally at age 17 in Memphis, Tenn. He came to Chicago in the 1940s and played on Maxwell Street, small clubs and street corners. By the 1950s, Edwards had played with almost every bluesman of note. Among Edwards' hit songs were "Long Tall Woman Blues," "Gamblin' Man" and "Just Like Jesse James."
Edwards won a 2008 Grammy for traditional blues album and received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement award in 2010. Edwards was known for being an oral historian of the music genre and would tell biographical stories between songs at his shows, Frank said. He was recorded for the Library of Congress in Clarksdale, Miss., in 1942.
