Dave "Honeyboy" Edwards
guitar, vocals, harmonica
born: June 28, 1915 in Shaw, Mississippi
"Blues came from holler songs. People used to work in the fields, and they worked from slavery, and they'd work all day long, and they didn't have nothing to do because they was tired and everything, and somebody came along and they started singing a song. They started singing the songs, and they're called the holler songs. In the '20s, Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith and Ida Cox and all of those back in the '20s, they started playing it and named it the blues. But before then it was holler songs." Honeyboy Edwards
"Honeyboy Edwards used to come up here to Helena (Arkansas) when we were doing the King Biscuit Show live in York Street, every damned day of the week. He'd ask me, 'Sonny, when you going' to let me play some on the radio?' I'd tell him I wasn't the one he had to talk to. He'd go on back there and ask four or five days in a row. One time I asked the boss, 'Would you let that sombitch play his guitar and sing?' So he starts singing the West Helena Blues! I couldn't barely get him off! Hell, I used to see him coming into town all the time but I'd never heard him play. So there he was playing and I said, 'Well I'll be damned! He's better than (W.C.) Clay was.' Clay had replaced Robert jr. (Lockwood) on the show by that time." Sonny Payne
When young David Edwards sets his first steps on the blues path, Big Joe Williams took it on him to look after him. Like the other bluesmen in those days Honeyboy traveled around trying to earn a few bucks. On these journeys he got aquainted with Charley Patton and Robert Johnson and actually played with Johnson on many occassions.
"Sometimes I'd play with Robert from twelve until three or four in the morning. We played all night long, all night. You'd never quit then. You stayed drunk and played till sunrise Sunday morning." Honeyboy Edwards
In the '70s he formed his Honeyboy Edwards Blues Band with Michael Frank on harmonica, playing in the Chicago clubscene.
Other musicians he played with are Otis Spann, Big Walter Hornton, Sunnyland Slim, Willie Dixon and Fleetwood Mac. He stills performs now and then, so check him out if you want to hear the blues by one of the original Delta Bluesmen.
Essential Honeyboy Edwards albums: White Windows and Delta Bluesman
Albums:
- Mississippi Delta Bluesman [Folkways 359,
1979]
- White Windows [Evidence 26039, 1988]
- Delta Bluesman [Earwig 4922, 1992] with Carey
Bell, Aron Burton, Floyd Jones, Robert Plunkett, Sunnyland
Slim; compilation of recordings he did for Alan Lomax (Library of
Congress) in 1942 plus a song from 1979 (with Kansas City Red)
and 7 electric blues numbers (1991)
- I've Been Around [Trix 3319, 1995] with Eddie
El, Big Walter Horton
- Crawling Kingsnake [Testament 6002, July
1997] with John Lee Henley
- The World Don't Owe Me Nothing [Earwig 4940,
December 1997] with Carey Bell, Rick Sherry
- Don't Mistreat A Fool [Genes 9914, November
1999] with Walter Horton, Johnny
Shines, Michael Stewart, Big Joe Williams
- Shake 'Em On Down [APO 2010, May 2000] with
Madison Slim, Jimmy D. Lane (Jimmy Rogers' son)
- Back to the Roots [Wolf 120854, ????]
He appears on the following albums:
Homesick James - Goin' Back in the Times [Earwig 4929, May
1994]
Various Artists - Bottleneck Blues [Testament 5021, October
1995]
Various Artists - Earwig 16th Anniversary Sampler [Earwig 4933,
November 1995]
Various Artists - The Best of Slide Guitar [Wolf 120103, June
1998]
Sunnyland Slim - She Got a Thing Goin' On [Blind Pig 4942,
October 1998]
Various Artists - Earwig 20th Anniversary Collection [Earwig
4946, October 1999] 2 CD set
Various Artists - Get the Blues! [Narm 50007, September 2001]
Various Artists - Sweet Emotion: The Songs of Aerosmith [Pilot
50068, May 2002]
Various Artists - A Salute to the Delta Blues Masters [Telarc
83575, October 2002] 3 CD Box set
Various Artists - An Introduction to the Blues: 60 Blues Guitar
Greats [Castle Music 91630, January 2003] 3 CD set
Various Artists - Sun Records: 25 Rare Blues Classics [Varese
066473, June 2003]
Various Artists - Box of the Blues [Rounder 612171, August
2003] 4 CD Box set
Various Artists - Alan Lomax: Blues Songbook [Rounder 1866,
September 2003] 2 CD set
Various Artists - Memphis Blues [JSP 57777, September 2006] 4
CD box set
U.K. visitors looking for Honeyboy Edwards albums? - Canadian visitors looking for Honeyboy Edwards albums?
Video:
- The Search For Robert Johnson [Sony/Columbia,
1992] DVD Explores for the first time the
troubled life and mysterious death of this legendary bluesman.
with Johnny Shines, Honeyboy Edwards, Eric Clapton and Johnson's
girlfriend Willie Mae Powell.- On VHS
- Can't You Hear The Wind Howl? - The Life and
Music of Robert Johnson [Winstar Home Entertainment, 1997] DVD
Traces the brief but extremely influential career of this
near-mythic figure, generally regarded as the king of the Delta
blues. with Keb' Mo'.- On VHS
- Hellhounds on My Trail - The Afterlife of Robert
Johnson [Winstar Home Entertainment, 1999] DVD
Sorts through the numerous myths about Johnson and the few extant
facts about his life. with Robert
Lockwood Jr., David "Honeyboy" Edwards, Eric
Clapton, Joe Louis Walker, Irma Thomas, Keb' Mo', Guy
Davis, Roy Rogers, Rory
Block, Henry
Townsend, Peter Green, Alvin Youngblood Hart, Bill Morrissey,
Sonny Landreth, Bob Weir, Marcia
Ball - On VHS
- Blues Story [2003] DVD
Various Artists - Crossroads Guitar Festival (2004) 2 DVD set
Books:
- The World Don't Owe Me Nothing: The Life and
Times of Delta Bluesman Honeyboy Edwards - Honeyboy Edwards
[April 2000]
Looking for Honeyboy Edwards sheetmusic?
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