Junior Kimbrough

Born David Kimbrough in Hudsonville, MS, in 1930, Junior Kimbrough learned to play guitar as a child by listening to the records of such blues artists as Mississippi Fred McDowell. He made his first record, "Tramp", in 1968, and followed that with several more singles, but although he was well known in Mississippi, he was virtually unknown outside it. One reason for that could be that in addition to being a performer, he also owned "juke joints", small clubs that catered to black audiences in the Mississippi Delta and "hill country" region, and his careers as a performer and club owner kept him pretty much confined to the state. In 1992 he appeared in the documentary Deep Blues (1992), along with such contemporaries as R.L. Burnside and Big Jack Johnson. He recorded his first album, "All Night Long", at about that time, for Fat Possum Records. The album, which received accolades from such prestigious music magazines as "Rolling Stone", finally brought him to the attention of audiences outside of the Mississippi area.