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Biography
Refimprove|date = March 2012Infobox musical artist | name = David "Honeyboy" Edwards| image = Honeyboy Edwards (blues musician).jpg|alt =| image_size =| caption = Edwards performing on February 11, 2008| background = solo_singer| birth_name = David Edwards| alias = Honeyboy Mr Honey| birth_date = Birth date|1915|6|28 Shaw, Mississippi|Shaw , Mississippi United States | death_date = dda|mf=yes|2011|8|29|1915|6|28 Chicago, Illinois|Chicago , Illinois United States | genre = Delta blues , jazz , R& B , soul music|soul , Folk music|folk | occupation = Musician , songwriter | years_active = 1942–2011| label = Earwig Music Company|Earwig Music , Trix Records|Trix , Chess Records|Chess , Arc Records, APO records| associated_acts = Robert Johnson (musician)|Robert Johnson , Pinetop Perkins , Henry Townsend (musician)|Henry Townsend , Robert Lockwood, Jr. | website = http://www.davidhoneyboyedwards.com/ http://www.davidhoneyboyedwards.com/ Official website Official website of Honeyboy EdwardsDavid "Honeyboy" Edwards (June 28, 1915& nbsp;– August 29, 2011) was a Delta blues guitarist and singing|singer from the United States|American South . Edwards was the last of the original Delta blues men Citation needed|date=March 2012before his 2011 death.
Life and career
Edwards was born in Shaw, Mississippi|Shaw , Mississippi . http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/musician.php? id=6490 Edwards biographical page, allaboutjazz.com; accessed February 2008. Edwards was 14 years old when he left home to travel with blues man Big Joe Williams , beginning life as an itinerant musician which he led throughout the 1930s and 1940s. He performed with famed blues musician Robert Johnson (musician)|Robert Johnson with whom he developed a close friendship. Honeyboy was present on the night Johnson drank poisoned whiskey which killed him,Guralnick, Peter. Searching for Robert Johnson , 1989. and his story has become the definitive version of Johnson's demise. After Johnson's passing, Edwards knew and played with many of the leading bluesmen in the Mississippi Delta, which included Charlie Patton|Charley Patton , Tommy Johnson (blues musician)|Tommy Johnson , and Johnny Shines .
He described the itinerant bluesman's life: cquote|On Saturday, somebody like me or Robert Johnson would go into one of these little towns, play for nickels and dimes. And sometimes, you know, you could be playin' and have such a big crowd that it would block the whole street. Then the police would come around, and then I'd go to another town and where I could play at. But most of the time, they would let you play. Then sometimes the man who owned a country store would give us something like a couple of dollars to play on a Saturday afternoon. We could hitchhike , transfer from truck to truck, or if we couldn't catch one of them, we'd go to the train yard, 'cause the railroad was all through that part of the country then...we might hop a freight, go to St. Louis or Chicago . Or we might hear about where a job was paying off - a highway crew, a railroad job, a levee camp there along the river, or some place in the country where a lot of people were workin' on a farm. You could go there and play and everybody would hand you some money. I didn't have a special place then. Anywhere was home. Where I do good, I stay. When it gets bad and dull, I'm gone.Palmer, Robert. Deep Blues , 1981. Folklore|Folklorist Alan Lomax recorded Edwards in Clarksdale, Mississippi in 1942 for the Library of Congress . Edwards recorded 15 album sides of music. The songs included "Wind Howlin' Blues" and "The Army Blues".cite book|first=Tony|last=Russell|year=1997|title=The Blues: From Robert Johnson to Robert Cray|edition=|publisher=Carlton Books Limited|location=Dubai|isbn=1-85868-255-X|page=109 He did not record again commercially until 1951, when he recorded "Who May Be Your Regular Be" for Arc Records|Arc under the name of Mr Honey. Edwards claims to have written several well-known blues songs including "Long Tall Woman Blues" and " Just Like Jesse James ". His discography for the 1950s and 1960s amounts to nine songs from seven sessions. From 1974 to 1977, he recorded material for a full length LP, ''I've Been Around , released in 1978 on the independent Trix Records label by producer/ ethnomusicologist Peter B. Lowry .
On July 17, 2011 his manager Michael Frank announced that Edwards would be retiring due to ongoing health issues.Matt Marshall. http://www.americanbluesscene.com/2011/07/david-honeyboy-edwards-retires/ "David 'Honeyboy' Edwards Retires". American Blues Scene . 17 July 2011. Retrieved 20 August 2011.
On August 29, 2011 Edwards died at his home, of congestive heart failure , at approx. 3 a.m.cite web|title=David Honeyboy Edwards|url= http://www.davidhoneyboyedwards.com/|accessdate=30 August 2011 According to events listings on the Metromix Chicago website, Edwards had been scheduled to perform at noon that day, at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Chicago's Millennium Park.cite web |url= http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search? q=cache:-rs5ra-7ToAJ:chicago.metromix.com/calendar/home/August-29-2011/loc.chicago_market.chicago.downtown.grant_park_museums+honeyboy-edwards-with-rick-grant-park-& cd=2& hl=en& ct=clnk& gl=us& client=firefox-a& source=www.google.com |title=Events for August 29, 2011 |accessdate=29 August 2011|work=chicago.metromix.com
In the 1991 documentary The Search for Robert Johnson , Edwards recounts stories about Johnson, including his murder .Citation needed|date=March 2012 The story of Edwards' own life is told in the 2010 award-winning film Honeyboy and the History of the Blues from Free Range Studios , directed by Scott Taradash. The film features stories of Edwards' life from picking cotton as a sharecropper to traveling the world performing his music. Artists who appear in the film include Keith Richards , Robert Cray , Joe Perry (musician)|Joe Perry , Lucinda Williams , B.B. King , Big Joe Williams , and Ace Atkins .Citation needed|date=March 2012 Edwards appeared in the 2007 film, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story .Citation needed|date=March 2012
His albums White Windows , ''The World Don't Owe Me Nothin' , Mississippi Delta Blues Man , and a recent album in which he appears with Robert Lockwood, Jr., Henry Townsend and Pinetop Perkins, Last of the Great Mississippi Delta Bluesmen: Live In Dallas|Last Of The Great Mississippi Delta Bluesmen: Live In Dallas , http://myspace.com/lastgreatlegends Last of the Great Mississippi Delta Bluesmen - Live in Dallas @ myspace.com were all nominated for the W. C. Handy Award. The latter album also won a 50th Grammy Awards|Grammy Award in 2008.
http://www.jcdisciples.org/images/phocagallery/musicians/DeltaBlues/davidhoneyboyedwards/bmatc/bmatc_10162009_076.jpg David "Honeyboy" Edwards performing at 2009 Blues Masters at the Crossroads Festival
References
Reflist
External links
commonscatPersondata | NAME = Edwards, David Honeyboy | ALTERNATIVE NAMES = | SHORT DESCRIPTION = | DATE OF BIRTH = June 28, 1915 | PLACE OF BIRTH = Shaw, Mississippi , United States | DATE OF DEATH = August 29, 2011 | PLACE OF DEATH = Chicago , Illinois , United States DEFAULTSORT:Edwards, David Honeyboy Category:1915 births Category:2011 deaths Category:Country blues musicians Category:African American musicians Category:American blues singers Category:American male singers Category:American blues guitarists Category:Blues Hall of Fame inductees Category:Blues musicians from Mississippi Category:People from Bolivar County, Mississippi Category:Delta blues musicians Category:National Heritage Fellowship winners Category:Slide guitarists Category:Writers from Mississippi Category:Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners Category:Deaths from heart failure Category:American film actors Category:Musicians from Chicago, Illinois
