JAMES COTTON
- BLUES MASTER -
G'day folks,
Welcome to the life of a blues master. James Henry Cotton is an American blues harmonica player, singer
and songwriter, who has performed and recorded with many of the great
blues artists of his time and with his own band.
James Cotton
is one of the very last of a dying breed—the Delta Bluesman. Of the genres
represented on this list, perhaps none is so ravaged by time. We have precious
few living links to the world they inhabited. That James Cotton is still alive
is a fact to be cherished. Born in Tunica, Mississippi, Cotton’s first exposure
to music was through his mother Hattie’s harmonica playing. Though she was not
particularly adept at the instrument, her playing fascinated James. He received
his first harp for Christmas one year and quickly surpassed his first mentor.
Like many of
the black families living in the segregated Delta, Cotton’s family worked as
sharecroppers. Because he was too young to cut cotton, he sat in the shade and
played music for his parents and siblings as they worked the fields. He took
his first great leap as a musician when he first heard Sonny Boy Williamson on
the radio. The legendary Williamson had gained widespread fame through his King
Biscuit Time broadcasts and Cotton became one of his most avid admirers.
At the age of
nine, Cotton suddenly lost both of his parents. His uncle, showing a remarkable
prescience, took the boy to nearby Helena, Arkansas, to meet his idol.
Williamson informally adopted the recently orphaned Cotton and made him his
opening act. Cotton was far too young to enter the juke joints they played, but
earned his tips by blowing harmonica on the front stoops.
When
Williamson’s band unraveled, Cotton journeyed to Memphis and earned his way
through his teenage years as a street performer and shoeshiner. One night,
Cotton caught wind of a Howlin’ Wolf performance in town. He rushed over with
his harp, introduced himself, and before the age of 15, found himself on tour
with another blues legend.
In 1954, when
Cotton joined yet a third blues legend—Muddy Waters—he began an association
that would last more than a decade, during which he would help cut some of
Waters’s most iconic recordings. In the ‘60s, Cotton struck out on his own with
the James Cotton Band, exploring similar psychedelic blues terrain as artists
like Jimi Hendrix and Canned Heat. He doubled down on this transition by
opening for Janis Joplin in 1967.
Over the
course of the next several decades, James Cotton accompanied a mighty list of
musicians, live and in studio, including Santana, B.B. King, the Grateful Dead,
and Taj Mahal. Cotton was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 2006 and
remains a flesh-and-blood connection to the ghosts of blues lore. James Cotton
is the greatest living blues harpist, a title he defends by performing live
even to this day.
Clancy's comment: Another very talented man, and still performing. Man, you have to love that sort of passion.
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