Honeyboy Edwards

"Delta blues" artist David "Honeyboy"--a nickname his sister gave him as a child--Edwards was born in Shaw, MS, in 1915. He taught himself to play the guitar as a boy by listening to such bluesmen as Tommy McClennan and Robert Petway. By age 14 he was playing in "juke joints" in the South with such artists as Big Joe Williams and Yank Rachell. He made a few recordings for the Library of Congress sin 1942, but didn't begin to record commercially until 1951, when he recorded for the American Recording Co. as "Mr. Honey". Two years later he traveled to Chicago to record four songs for Chess Records, but only one of them, "Drop Down Mama", was ever released, and that wasn't until 1970. Edwards, however, continued to tour and play clubs--and, when necessary, on street corners--in Chicago, and would occasionally play the South. In the 1960s he began his recording career again, this time with Adelphi/Blue Horizon, and also started to play blues festivals. In the 1970s and 1980s he toured Europe and Japan. He died of heart failure in Chicago in 2011.