Earl King Dies

 Earl King, the prolific songwriter and guitarist responsible for some of the
most enduring compositions in the history of R&B, died April 17th from diabetes related complications. He was 69. Over his 50-year career, King wrote and recorded hundreds of songs. His best-known compositions include the Mardi Gras standards ''Big Chief'' and ''Street Parade''; the rollicking ''Come On (Let the Good Times Roll),'' which both Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan recorded; and ''Trick Bag." In his prime, he was an explosive performer, tearing sinewy solos from his Stratocaster guitar and wearing his hair in an elaborate, upraised coif. Born Earl Silas Johnson IV he cut his first singles in the early 1950s, taking on the stage name ''Earl King'' at the suggestion of a record promoter. "Those Lonely, Lonely Nights" became one of Mr. King's first regional hits. His recording of "Trick Bag" for Imperial Records reached No. 17 on Billboard's R&B chart in 1962. After an abortive affiliation with Motown Records, Mr. King returned to the business of writing and recording songs in New Orleans. Work for New Orleans R&B artists dried up the late 1960s but rebounded a decade later. Mr. King was coaxed out of semiretirement by young musicians who grew up on his music. He enjoyed a career renaissance after recording and releasing several well-received albums for the local Black Top Records label. The first was "Glazed," a 1986 Grammy-nominated collaboration with the New England band Roomful of Blues, followed by "Sexual Telepathy" and "Hard River to Cross," on which he remade several of his older songs. Unlike many artists from the golden age of R&B, Mr. King retained the publishing rights to his compositions. As a result, he was able to live off songwriting royalties generated by the likes of "Come On (Let the Good Times Roll)," which appeared on Jimi Hendrix's multimillion-selling 1968 album "Electric Ladyland." In recent years he performed more frequently overseas. As his health deteriorated, he was hospitalized numerous times as diabetes took a toll.

Hank Ballard Dies

 Hank Ballard, the singer and songwriter whose hit "TheTwist" ushered a nationwide dance craze in the 1960s, died March 2nd. Ballard, who was suffering from throat cancer, died at his home. Ballard's birth records indicate he was born in 1927, but biographical information lists his birthdate as 1936. In 1958, Ballard wrote and recorded "The Twist," but it was only released on the "B'' side of a record. One year later, Chubby Checker debuted his own version of "The Twist'' on Dick Clark's Philadelphia television show. It soon topped the charts and launched a dance craze that prompted the creation of other Twist songs, including "Twist and Shout" by the Isley Brothers and "Twistin' the Night Away'' by Sam Cooke. Ballard was discovered in the early 1950s by writer-producer Johnny Otis. He was lead singer for the Royals, which changed its name to the Midnighters. By the early 1960s, he had charted 22 singles on the rhythm and blues charts, including "Work with Me Annie'' - the biggest R&B hit of 1954, selling more than 1 million copies. Ballard was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990.

'Beale Streeter' Forest Dies

 Drummer and singer Earl Lacy Forest, one of the legendary "Beale Streeters,"
died of cancer on February 26th at Memphis Veterans Medical Center. He was 76. The Beale Streeters were an informal group of musical friends in the early '50s that played together throughout the Mid-South and on each other's recordings. They included future R&B and blues stars Bobby Bland, Johnny Ace, Junior Parker and Rosco Gordon. B. B. King is sometimes considered a member, though he was more an excuse for the Beale Streeters to perform, and one version of the group - with Mr. Forest, Ace and saxophonist Billy Duncan - played on King's 1951 classic "Three O'Clock Blues." Mr. Forest and the Beale Streeters were also on some of Bland's first sides, including the 1951 Sam Phillips-produced Chess single "A Letter from a Trench in Korea" and Bland's first Duke single, 1952's "I.O.U. Blues." Mr. Forest was also a songwriter and established himself later writing songs for Bland, Parker, Little Milton and others. Among his tunes is the standard "Next Time You See Me", recorded by Parker, James Cotton and many others. Mr. Forest composed in recent years with Malaco songsmith George Jackson, and the duo had co-written numerous tunes for Johnnie Taylor and Bland at the label.

Othar Turner Dies

 Otha Turner, master of the homemade fife and king of the barbecued goat and
music picnic, died February 26th in Gravel Springs, Miss. Most agree he was 94. Turner, who played a bamboo cane fife, or wooden flute, was a living link to rural blues and a 19th Century fife-and-drum tradition that predated the blues. His music was recently featured in Martin Scorsese's Academy Award-nominated film Gangs of New York. Born in Rankin County, Miss., Turner grew up in the North Mississippi hill country of Tate and Panola counties, where he spent much of his life as a sharecropper and subsistence farmer. Turner first heard the fife as a teenager in the 1920s. Turner's music, which he often played with his Rising Star Fife & Drum Band, was an important bridge to a past shared by late fife players Sid Hemphill and Napoleon Strickland, with whom Turner also played in the Como Drum Band. A W. C. Handy Blues Awards nominee this year for best instrumentalist, Turner played such regional festivals as the Beale Street Music Festival and King Biscuit Blues Festival in Helena, Ark. His reputation grew through his annual Labor Day picnic at his home in Gravel Springs, which drew people from all over the world. Turner was first recorded in the 1960s and can be heard on a number of blues compilations including the Arhoolie set "Mississippi Delta Blues Jam in Memphis Volume 1," the German collection "Living Country Blues: An Anthology," the Austrian disc "Africa and the Blues," both volumes of "It Came From Memphis," and the Library of Congress anthology "Afro-American Folk Music from Tate and Panola Counties, Mississippi," the latter which features Turner on guitar. Yet his first album didn't come out until 1998. That album, "Everybody Hollerin' Goat," was picked by Rolling Stone magazine as one of the five "Essential Blues Records of the Decade." A 2000 follow-up, "From Senegal to Senatobia," paired Turner with African musicians. Both records were produced by Luther Dickinson, who used Turner as well on the North Mississippi Allstars' albums.

[Get well cards and donations can be sent to:
c/o Bobby Turner, 3339 Gravel Springs Road, Senatobia, Mississipi 38668]

Keeping The Blues Alive Awards Announced

 Nineteen dedicated Blues enthusiasts will receive The Blues Foundation's 2003 Keeping The Blues Alive (KBA) Award. The Awards will be presented to each of the recipients during a recognition brunch on Sunday February 2, 2003 as part of the BluesFirst convention. The ceremony will take place at the Gibson Lounge located in the Gibson Guitar plant in downtown Memphis at 11:00 a.m. Bob Porter, host of the syndicated Blues radio program "Portrait in Blue," will host the awards. For the complete story and list of winners click here.

Little Hatch Dies

 Provine Hatch aka Little Hatch died January 15th. The seventh of nine sons who all
played harmonica, he was seven when he owned his first harp. The family moved to Helena, Arkansas, in the mid-30s, where Hatch first encountered Howlin'Wolf, Johnny Shines, Robert Lockwood and Sonny Boy Williamson II. He moved to Kansas City, where he ran his own business and played in the KC clubs. His first album, as "The Little Hatchet Band", was recorded live by a German student in 1970. At the end of the decade, he retired from music for nearly 10 years before resuming in 1987. He recorded two records for the APO label including "Goin' Back" and "Rock With Me Baby" which was released in 2003.

Big Lucky Carter Dies

 Memphis blues veteran Levester 'Big Lucky' Carter died December 24th. He was 82. Born in Weir, Miss., Mr. Carter made his way to Memphis after serving in the Army during World War II. He earned his "Big Lucky" sobriquet during that time for his gambling skills. In the late '50s and early '60s, Mr. Carter performed behind his cousin, Ed 'Prince Gabe' Kirby, as a member of the Rhythmaires/Millionaires, a group
that recorded a handful of songs for Sun, Savoy and other labels. Mr. Carter made six sides for the Hi label in 1969 including two singles for label subsidiary M.O.C.
It wasn't until 1998, however, that Mr. Carter, then in his late 70s, made his first album, "Lucky 13," which won a year-end readers poll for best blues CD in the French magazine Soul Bag and was honored with the prestigious Big Bill Broonzy prize for best blues CD from the French Academy of Jazz. Released on the British label Blueside, that album bolstered Mr. Carter's reputation in Europe. Even though "Lucky 13" was never released in America, it received accolades here, including a critics' choice award in Living Blues magazine for Artist Most Deserving of Wider Recognition. Locally, Mr. Carter could be found playing at Wild Bill's, and he was a
mainstay at the Center for Southern Folklore and its Memphis Music & Heritage Festival.

Mose Vinson Dies

 Venerable Memphis blues pianist Mose Vinson died Nov. 30th from diabetes. He was 85. Born in Holly Springs, Miss., Vinson had a lengthy if largely unheralded
career as one of the area's genuine practitioners of pre-war barrel house
piano playing. Vinson, who began playing organ as a child, moved to Memphis in the 1930s after meeting pianist Sunnyland Slim. He became a Bluff City mainstay,
playing in clubs with the likes of B. B. King in the 1940s and finding his way in the '50s to Sun Records, where he was a studio caretaker doing plumbing and janitorial work. Vinson got his own shot with Sun in 1953, when he recorded a number of
sides for the label, all unissued in their day. Most have since been released on the Charly boxed set "Sun Records: The Blues Years, 1950-1958." A year later, however, Vinson appeared on one of Sun's greatest singles, the classic James Cotton pairing of Cotton Crop Blues and "Hold Me in Your Arms." Later in life, Vinson played outside Memphis, notably the Chicago Blues Festival, the University of Chicago Folk Festival and the 1982 Knoxville World's Fair. He was also featured in 1992 on National Public Radio's program BluesStage. For the past two decades, Vinson was heard mostly at the Center for Southern Folklore and its Memphis Music & Heritage Festival.

Hadda Brooks Dies

 Hadda Brooks, who first rose to fame on the piano in the mid-1940s as "Queen
of the Boogie" and became a popular torch singer with hits such as "That's My Desire," died on Nov. 23rd. She was 86. Brooks' first single, the hit "Swingin' The Boogie" in 1945, launched not only her career, but also Los Angeles-based Modern Records, which became the West Coast's premier post-war R&B label. As a singer in the late 1940s and '50s, Brooks scored hits such as "Trust in Me," "Don't Take Your Love From Me" and "Dream." She also sang in several films and, in the early '50s, became the first African American entertainer to host a television variety show, on Channel 13 in Los Angeles. n the ensuing years, Brooks lived and worked in Europe, Australia and Hawaii. Finding it increasingly difficult to compete with rock 'n' roll, she retired in 1971 and moved back to Los Angeles. In 1987, she came out of retirement when offered a job opening a new club in L.A.'s landmark Perino's restaurant. Rave reviews brought other jobs, including a four-week engagement at Michael's Pub in New York City, which prompted a New York Times critic to call her "a phenomenon." In 1993, the Smithsonian-based Rhythm and Blues Foundation presented her with its Pioneer Award at the Hollywood Palace. A year later, Virgin
Records, which had bought the old Modern Records catalog, issued a 25-track
compilation of Brooks' early recordings on a CD titled "That's My Desire." In 1995, she was back in the recording studio for the first time in decades, recording "Time Was When," a CD for Pointblank/Virgin Records. In 1999, the label released "I've Got News for You," a 50-year double-CD retrospective, which included eight new tracks.