(Joseph Benjamin Hutto)
DISCOGRAPHY 1967-2004 (23CD)
BIOGRAPHY
J.B. Hutto (April 26, 1926 – June 12, 1983) was an American blues
musician. Hutto was influenced by Elmore James, and became known for his
slide guitar work and declamatory style of singing. He was inducted into
the Blues Hall of Fame two years after his death.
Joseph Benjamin Hutto was born in Blackville, South Carolina, United
States, the fifth of seven children. His family moved to Augusta,
Georgia when Hutto was three years old.
His father, Calvin, was a preacher and Hutto, along with his three
brothers and three sisters, formed a gospel group called The Golden
Crowns, singing in local churches. Hutto's father died in 1949, and the
family relocated to Chicago. Hutto served as a draftee in the Korean War
in the early 1950s, driving trucks in combat zones.
In Chicago, Hutto took up the drums and played with Johnny Ferguson and
his Twisters. He also tried the piano before settling on the guitar and
playing on the streets with the percussionist Eddie 'Porkchop' Hines.
After adding Joe Custom on second guitar, they started playing club gigs,
and harmonica player George Mayweather joined after sitting in with the
band.
Hutto named his band The Hawks, after the wind that blows in Chicago. A
recording session in 1954 resulted in the release of two singles on the
Chance label and a second session later the same year, with the band
supplemented by pianist Johnny Jones, produced a third.
Later in the 1950s Hutto became disenchanted with music, and gave it up
to work as a janitor in a funeral home after a woman broke his guitar over
her husband's head one night. He returned to the music industry in the mid
1960s, with a new version of the Hawks featuring Herman Hassell on bass
and Frank Kirkland on drums.
His recording career resumed with, first, a session for Vanguard Records
released on the compilation album Chicago/the Blues/Today! Vol.1, and then
albums for Testament and Delmark. The 1968 Delmark album, Hawk Squat!,
which featured Sunnyland Slim on organ and piano, and Maurice McIntyre on
tenor saxophone, is regarded as his best work on album up to this
point.
After Hound Dog Taylor died in 1975, Hutto took over his band the
Houserockers for a time, and in the late 1970s he moved to Boston and
recruited a new band which he called the New Hawks, with whom he recorded
further studio albums for the Varrick label. His 1983 Varrick album
Slippin' & Slidin', the last of his career and later reissued on CD as
Rock With Me Tonight, has been described as "near-perfect".
Hutto returned to Illinois in the early 1980s, where he was diagnosed
with cancer. He died in 1983, at the age of 57, in Harvey. He was interred
at Restvale Cemetery, Alsip, Illinois.
In 1985, the Blues Foundation inducted Hutto into its Hall of Fame. His
nephew, Lil' Ed Williams (of Lil' Ed and the Blues Imperials) has carried
on his legacy, playing and singing in a style close to his uncle's.
A "J.B. Hutto" model guitar is often used to refer to a mid-1960s, red,
Montgomery Ward Res-O-Glas Airline guitar. Although he was not a paid
endorser, Hutto made the guitar famous by appearing with it on the cover
of his Slidewinder album.
NEW!
1980-Live At Sandy's Jazz Revival Vol.1 (LP) @FLAC
Lucky Peterson (born Judge Kenneth Peterson, December 13, 1964, Buffalo,
New York) is an American musician who plays contemporary blues, fusing
soul, R'n'B, gospel and rock and roll.
