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Biography
No footnotes|date=May 2009Infobox musical artist | name = Junior Kimbrough| image = Junior Kimbrough.jpg| caption = Junior Kimbrough, 1995| image_size =| background = solo_singer| birth_name = David Kimbrough| alias =| birth_date = birth date|1930|7|28|mf=y| birth_place = Hudsonville, Mississippi|Hudsonville , Mississippi , United States | death_date = death date and age|1998|1|17|1930|7|28| death_place = Holly Springs, Mississippi , United States| origin =| instrument = Guitar , Human voice|vocals | genre = Delta blues , juke joint blues , country blues | occupation =| years_active =| label = Fat Possum Records|Fat Possum Capricorn Records | website =| notable_instruments = David "Junior" Kimbrough (July 28, 1930 — January 17, 1998) was an United States|American blues musician. His best known work included "Keep Your Hands Off Her" and "All Night Long". Music journalism|Music journalist Tony Russell stated "his raw, repetitive style suggests an archaic forebear of John Lee Hooker , a character his music shares with that of fellow North Mississippi an R. L. Burnside ".
Overview
Junior Kimbrough was born in Hudsonville, Mississippi , and lived in the North Mississippi Hill Country near Holly Springs, Mississippi|Holly Springs . He recorded for the Fat Possum Records record label|label . He was a long-time associate of labelmate R. L. Burnside , and the Burnside and Kimbrough families often collaborated on musical projects. This relationship continues today. Rockabilly musician and friend Charlie Feathers called Kimbrough "the beginning and end of all music." This is written on Kimbrough's tombstone outside his family's church, the Kimbrough Family Church, in Holly Springs.
Beginning around 1992, Kimbrough operated a juke joint known as "Junior's Place" in Chulahoma, Mississippi|Chulahoma , Mississippi, which attracted visitors from around the world, including members of U2 (band)|U2 , Keith Richards , and Iggy Pop . Kimbrough's sons, musicians Kinney and David Malone Kimbrough, kept it open following his death, until it burned to the ground on April 6, 2000.
Junior Kimbrough died of a myocardial infarction|heart attack in 1998 in Holly Springs following a stroke , at the age of 67. http://thedeadrockstarsclub.com/1998.html Thedeadrockstarsclub.com - accessed November 2009
Music
Kimbrough began playing guitar in his youth, and counted Lightnin' Hopkins as an early influence. In the late 1950s he began playing in his own style, which made use of mid-tempo rhythms and a steady Drone (music)|drone he played with his thumb on the bass strings of his guitar. This style would later be cited as a prime example of regional north hill country blues .cite web|url= http://www.hillcountryharmonica.com/hillcountryblues.html |title=Mississippi hill country blues: an introduction & #124; R.L. Burnside - Junior Kimbrough - Mississippi Fred McDowell - Jessie Mae Hemphill - North Mississippi Allstars |publisher=Hillcountryharmonica.com |date= |accessdate=2011-12-31 His music is characterized by the tricky syncopation s between his droning bass strings and his mid-range melodies. His soloing style has been described as modal jazz|modal and features languorous runs in the mid and upper register. The result was described by music critic Robert Palmer (author/producer)|Robert Palmer as "hypnotic". In solo and ensemble settings it is often polyrhythmic, which links it explicitly to the music of Africa . Fellow North Mississippi bluesman and former Kimbrough bassist Eric Deaton has suggested similarities between Junior Kimbrough's music and Mali an bluesman Ali Farka Touré 's.
Career
In 1966 Kimbrough traveled to Memphis, Tennessee from his home in North Mississippi and recorded for the Rhythm and blues|R& B / Gospel music|gospel producer and owner of the Goldwax record label, Quinton Claunch. Claunch was a founder of Hi Records (whose entire catalog will be reissued by Fat Possum) and is known as the man that gave James Carr (musician)|James Carr and O.V. Wright their start. Kimbrough recorded one session in one afternoon at American Studios. Claunch declined to release the recordings, deeming them too Country music|country . Forty some years later, Bruce Watson of Big Legal Mess Records approached Claunch to buy the original master tapes and the rights to release the recordings made that day. These songs were released by Big Legal Mess Records in 2009 as First Recordings . Kimbrough's debut release was a cover version of Lowell Fulson 's "Tramp" released as a single (music)|single on independent label Philwood in 1967. On the label of the record Kimbrough's name was spelled incorrectly as Junior Kimbell and the song "Tramp" was listed as "Tram? " The A-side and B-side|b-side was "You Can't Leave Me".
Among his other early recordings are two duet (music)|duets with his childhood friend Charlie Feathers in 1969. Feathers counted Kimbrough as an early influence and Kimbrough gave Feathers some of his earliest lessons on guitar.
Kimbrough recorded very little in the 1970s, contributing an early version of "Meet Me in the City" to a European blues anthology. With his band, the Soul Blues Boys, Kimbrough recorded again in the 1980s, releasing a single in 1982 ("Keep Your Hands Off Her" b/w "I Feel Good, Little Girl"). The High Water Recording Company|High Water label recorded a 1988 session with Kimbrough and the Soul Blues Boys, releasing it in 1997 with his 1982 single as "Do The Rump".
Kimbrough came to national attention in 1992 with his debut album, All Night Long (Junior Kimbrough album)|All Night Long .cite book | first= Tony | last= Russell | year= 1997 | title= The Blues - From Robert Johnson (musician)|Robert Johnson to Robert Cray | edition= | publisher=Carlton Books Limited | location= Dubai | pages= 130–131 | isbn= 1-85868-255-X Robert Palmer (author/producer)|Robert Palmer record producer|produced the album for Fat Possum Records, recording it in a local church (building)|church with Junior's son Kent "Kinney" Kimbrough (aka Kenny Malone) on drum kit|drums and R. L. Burnside's son Garry Burnside on bass guitar . The album featured many of his most celebrated songs, including the title track, the complexly melodic "Meet Me In The City," and "You Better Run" a harrowing ballad of attempted rape. All Night Long earned near-unanimous praise from music journalism|critics , receiving four stars in Rolling Stone . His stock continued to rise the following year after live footage of him playing "All Night Long" in one of his juke joints appeared in the Robert Mugge directed, Robert Palmer narrated film documentary , Deep Blues: A Musical Pilgrimage to the Crossroads . This performance was actually recorded earlier in 1990.
A second album for Fat Possum, Sad Days, Lonely Nights , followed in 1994. A music video|video for the album's title track featured Kimbrough, Garry Burnside and Kent Kimbrough playing in Kimbrough's juke joint. The last album he would record, ''Most Things Haven't Worked Out , appeared on Fat Possum in 1997. Following his death in 1998 in Holly Springs, Fat Possum released two posthumous compilation album s of material Kimbrough recorded in the 1990s, God Knows I Tried (1998) and Meet Me in The City (1999). A greatest hits compilation, You Better Run: The Essential Junior Kimbrough , followed in 2002. Fat Possum also released a tribute album, Sunday Nights: The Songs of Junior Kimbrough '', in 2005, which featured Iggy & The Stooges (Kimbrough once toured with frontman Iggy Pop ), The Black Keys and Mark Lanegan . The Black Keys have released an album composed entirely of covers of Junior's music, Chulahoma: The Songs of Junior Kimbrough|Chulahoma . Richard Johnston (musician)|Richard Johnston , a Kimbrough protege, keeps this musical tradition alive with one of Junior's sons, via live performances on Beale Street in Memphis.
Album discography
First Recordings (recorded in 1966, released in 2009)
All Night Long (Junior Kimbrough album)|All Night Long (1992)
Sad Days, Lonely Nights (1993)
Meet Me in the City (1996)
Do The Rump (1997)
''Most Things Haven't Worked Out (1997)
God Knows I Tried (1998)
You Better Run: The Essential Junior Kimbrough (2002)
Sunday Nights: The Songs of Junior Kimbrough
The Black Keys - Chulahoma: The Songs of Junior Kimbrough (Songs written by Kimbrough and performed by The Black Keys )
Films
Deep Blues: A Musical Pilgrimage to the Crossroads (1992)
''You See Me Laughin': The Last of the Hill Country Bluesmen (2003) - released by Fat Possum Records in 2005
Bransford, Steve. "Blues in the Lower Chattahoochee Valley" Southern Spaces 2004
Clarke, Donald (1995). The Rise and Fall of Popular Music . St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-11573-3.
Dicaire, David (1999). Blues Singers: Biographies of 50 Legendary Artists of the Early 20th Century . McFarland. ISBN 0-7864-0606-2.
Ewen, David (1957). Panorama of American Popular Music . Prentice Hall. ISBN 0-13-648360-7.
Ferris, Jean (1993). ''America's Musical Landscape . Brown & Benchmark. ISBN 0-697-12516-5.
Garofalo, Reebee (1997). ''Rockin' Out: Popular Music in the USA . Allyn & Bacon. ISBN 0-205-13703-2.
Morales, Ed (2003). The Latin Beat . Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-81018-2.
Schuller, Gunther (1968). Early Jazz: Its Roots and Musical Development . Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-504043-0.
Southern, Eileen (1997). The Music of Black Americans . W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. ISBN 0-393-03843-2.
"Muslim Roots of the Blues". SFGate. http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi? file=/chronicle/archive/2004/08/15/INGMC85SSK1.DTL.
Lawrence Cohn (1993). Nothing But the Blues: The Music and the Musicians . Abbeville Press. ISBN 1-55859-271-7.
External links
http://www.fatpossum.com Junior Kimbrough page from Fat Possum Records site
http://www.cascadeblues.org/History/JuniorKimbrough.htm Junior Kimbrough by Greg Johnson, from Blues Notes , April 2002 (from Cascade Blues Association site)
http://www.thefunkstore.com/JuniorsJukeJoint.htm Junior's Juke Joint: The Music of the Late Great Bluesman Junior Kimbrough
Allmusic|class=artist|id=p39835|pure_url=yes Kimbrough biography at Allmusic .com website
http://myspace.com/juniorkimbrough Official MySpace Page
IMDb name|0453919
Worldcat id|lccn-no00-81441
Persondata | NAME =Kimbrough, David | ALTERNATIVE NAMES =Kimbrough, Junior | SHORT DESCRIPTION = United States|American blues musician | DATE OF BIRTH =July 28, 1930 | PLACE OF BIRTH = Hudsonville, Mississippi , United States | DATE OF DEATH =January 17, 1998 | PLACE OF DEATH = Holly Springs, Mississippi , United States DEFAULTSORT:Kimbrough, Junior Category:1930 births Category:1998 deaths Category:People from Marshall County, Mississippi Category:People from Holly Springs, Mississippi Category:Delta blues musicians Category:Electric blues musicians Category:Juke Joint blues musicians Category:African American musicians Category:American blues singers Category:American blues guitarists Category:Fat Possum Records artists Category:Blues musicians from Mississippi Category:Deaths from myocardial infarction
