The Resume

(June 28, 1915-August 29, 2011)
Born in Shaw, Mississippi
Delta blues guitarist and singer
Recorded by folklorist Alan Lomax for the Library of Congress (1942)
Recorded the albums 'I've Been Around' (1978), 'Old Friends' (1979), 'Delta Bluesman' (1992), 'Crawling Kingsnake' (1997), 'Shake 'Em On Down' (2000), 'Mississippi Delta Bluesman' (2001), 'Roamin and Ramblin' (2008) and 'Last of the Great Mississippi Delta Bluesmen: Live in Dallas' (with Robert Lockwood, Jr., Henry James Townsend and Pinetop Perkins, 2008)
Appeared in the documentary 'The Search for Robert Johnson' (1991) and the film 'Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story' (2007)
Wrote the autobiography 'The World Don't Owe Me Nothin' (1997)
Inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame (1996)
Received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (2010)

Why he might be annoying:

He left home to become an itinerant musician at 14.
He was arrested for vagrancy while riding the rails.
He recorded under the name 'Mr. Honey.'
He said about his lack of commercial success until his late-70s rediscovery, 'Sometimes I hurt my chances. I was wild and crazy and wouldn't stay nowhere much. And sometimes I was just too hard-headed.'
Towards the end of his life, he was hailed more for being the last surviving connection to blues legend Robert Johnson than for his own music.

Why he might not be annoying:

He was the son of sharecroppers and grandson of slaves.
He was a terrific raconteur and oral historian of the blues.
He toured alongside Robert Johnson and seven decades later was still playing a hundred shows a year.
'Rolling Stone' wrote of his live performances, 'He shows that you don't always need a band to move people's feet.'
His manager said, 'He was the living embodiment of the quintessential Mississippi bluesman of lore, but there's nothing fictitious about his life or music. It's the stuff of legend, only it's not legend. It's real.'

Credit: C. Fishel

Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

• Blues Musicians
• C. Fishel's Profiles [Series 38]
• Grammy for Best Traditional Blues Album (Ranked: 2008)
• Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (Ranked: 2010)
• I Covered 'Stagger Lee'
• I Died in 2011 (Ranked: 96)
• Look at Me, I'm Accepting My Award
• Look at Me, I'm Accepting My Grammy
• My Nickname is Part of My Name [M-Z]
• Profiles 31751-32000 (Ranked: 31770)

Year In Review:

In 2023, Out of 4 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
In 2022, Out of 3 Votes: 33.33% Annoying
In 2021, Out of 12 Votes: 25.00% Annoying
In 2020, Out of 1 Votes: 0% Annoying
In 2019, Out of 8 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
In 2017, Out of 3 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
In 2016, Out of 4 Votes: 75.00% Annoying
In 2015, Out of 4 Votes: 75.00% Annoying
In 2014, Out of 10 Votes: 60.0% Annoying
In 2013, Out of 15 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
In 2012, Out of 9 Votes: 44.44% Annoying
In 2011, Out of 72 Votes: 59.72% Annoying