Furry Lewis
Encyclopedia
Furry Lewis was an American
country blues
guitarist
and songwriter
from Memphis
, Tennessee
. Lewis was one of the first of the old-time blues musicians of the 1920s to be brought out of retirement, and given a new lease of recording life, by the folk blues revival of the 1960s.
, Mississippi
, United States
, but his family moved to Memphis when he was aged seven. Lewis acquired the nickname
"Furry" from childhood playmates. By 1908, he was playing solo
for parties, in taverns, and on the street. He also was invited to play several dates with W. C. Handy
's Orchestra
.
His travels exposed him to a wide variety of performers including Bessie Smith
, Blind Lemon Jefferson
, and Alger "Texas" Alexander. Like his contemporary Frank Stokes, he tired of the road and took a permanent job in 1922. His position as a street sweeper
for the City of Memphis, a job he would hold until his retirement in 1966, allowed him to remain active in the Memphis music scene.
In 1927, Lewis cut his first records
in Chicago
for the Vocalion
label
. A year later he recorded for the Victor label at the Memphis Auditorium in a session with the Memphis Jug Band
, Jim Jackson
, Frank Stokes, and others. He again recorded for Vocalion in Memphis in 1929. The tracks were mostly blues but included two-part versions of "Casey Jones
" and "John Henry". He sometimes fingerpick
ed, sometimes played with a slide
. He recorded many successful records in the late 1920s including "Kassie Jones", "Billy Lyons & Stack-O-Lee
" and "Judge Harsh Blues" (later called "Good Morning Judge").
In 1969, Lewis was recorded by the record producer
, Terry Manning
, at home in Lewis' Beale Street
apartment. These recordings
were released in Europe
at the time by Barclay Records
, and then again in the early 1990s by Lucky Seven Records in the United States
, and again in 2006 by Universal
. Joni Mitchell
's song, "Furry Sings the Blues", (on her Hejira
album
) is about Lewis and the Memphis music she experienced in the early 1970s. Lewis despised the Mitchell song and demanded she pay him royalties
.
In 1972 he was the featured performer in the Memphis Blues Caravan, which included Bukka White
, Sleepy John Estes
, Clarence Nelson, Hammy Nixon, Memphis Piano Red, Sam Chatmon
, and Mose Vinson
.
Before he died, Lewis opened twice for The Rolling Stones
, played on Johnny Carson
's The Tonight Show
, and had a part in a Burt Reynolds
movie
, W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings
(1975), and had a profile in Playboy magazine
.
Lewis began to lose his eyesight because of cataract
s in his final years. He contracted pneumonia
in 1981, which led to his death from heart failure in Memphis on September 14 of that year, at the age of 88. He is buried in the Hollywood Cemetery in South Memphis, where his grave bears two headstones, the second purchased by fans.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
country blues
Country blues
Country blues is a general term that refers to all the acoustic, mainly guitar-driven forms of the blues. It often incorporated elements of rural gospel, ragtime, hillbilly, and dixieland jazz...
guitarist
Guitarist
A guitarist is a musician who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselves on the guitar while singing.- Versatility :The guitarist controls an extremely...
and songwriter
Songwriter
A songwriter is an individual who writes both the lyrics and music to a song. Someone who solely writes lyrics may be called a lyricist, and someone who only writes music may be called a composer...
from Memphis
Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....
, Tennessee
Tennessee
Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...
. Lewis was one of the first of the old-time blues musicians of the 1920s to be brought out of retirement, and given a new lease of recording life, by the folk blues revival of the 1960s.
Life and career
Walter E. Lewis was born in GreenwoodGreenwood, Mississippi
Greenwood is a city in and the county seat of Leflore County, Mississippi, United States, located at the eastern edge of the Mississippi Delta approximately 96 miles north of Jackson, Mississippi, and 130 miles south of Memphis, Tennessee. The population was 15,205 at the 2010 census. It is the...
, Mississippi
Mississippi
Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, but his family moved to Memphis when he was aged seven. Lewis acquired the nickname
Nickname
A nickname is "a usually familiar or humorous but sometimes pointed or cruel name given to a person or place, as a supposedly appropriate replacement for or addition to the proper name.", or a name similar in origin and pronunciation from the original name....
"Furry" from childhood playmates. By 1908, he was playing solo
Solo (music)
In music, a solo is a piece or a section of a piece played or sung by a single performer...
for parties, in taverns, and on the street. He also was invited to play several dates with W. C. Handy
W. C. Handy
William Christopher Handy was a blues composer and musician. He was widely known as the "Father of the Blues"....
's Orchestra
Orchestra
An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...
.
His travels exposed him to a wide variety of performers including Bessie Smith
Bessie Smith
Bessie Smith was an American blues singer.Sometimes referred to as The Empress of the Blues, Smith was the most popular female blues singer of the 1920s and 1930s...
, Blind Lemon Jefferson
Blind Lemon Jefferson
"Blind" Lemon Jefferson was an American blues singer and guitarist from Texas. He was one of the most popular blues singers of the 1920s, and has been titled "Father of the Texas Blues"....
, and Alger "Texas" Alexander. Like his contemporary Frank Stokes, he tired of the road and took a permanent job in 1922. His position as a street sweeper
Street sweeper
A street sweeper or street cleaner can refer to a person's occupation or a machine that cleans streets, usually in an urban area.-History of street sweeping in the United States:...
for the City of Memphis, a job he would hold until his retirement in 1966, allowed him to remain active in the Memphis music scene.
In 1927, Lewis cut his first records
Gramophone record
A gramophone record, commonly known as a phonograph record , vinyl record , or colloquially, a record, is an analog sound storage medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove...
in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
for the Vocalion
Vocalion Records
Vocalion Records is a record label active for many years in the United States and in the United Kingdom.-History:Vocalion was founded in 1916 by the Aeolian Piano Company of New York City, which introduced a retail line of phonographs at the same time. The name was derived from one of their...
label
Record label
In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...
. A year later he recorded for the Victor label at the Memphis Auditorium in a session with the Memphis Jug Band
Memphis Jug Band
The Memphis Jug Band was an American musical group in the late 1920s and early to mid 1930s. The band featured harmonicas, violins, mandolins, banjos, and guitars, backed by washboards, kazoo, and jugs blown to supply the bass; they played in a variety of musical styles...
, Jim Jackson
Jim Jackson (musician)
Jim Jackson was an African American blues and hokum singer, songster and guitarist, whose recordings in the late 1920s were popular and influential on later artists.-Career:...
, Frank Stokes, and others. He again recorded for Vocalion in Memphis in 1929. The tracks were mostly blues but included two-part versions of "Casey Jones
The Ballad of Casey Jones
"The Ballad of Casey Jones" is a traditional song about railroad engineer Casey Jones and his death at the controls of the train he was driving. It tells of how Jones and his fireman Sim Webb raced their locomotive to make up for lost time, but discovered another train ahead of them on the line,...
" and "John Henry". He sometimes fingerpick
Fingerpick
A fingerpick is a type of plectrum used most commonly for playing bluegrass style banjo music. Most fingerpicks are composed of metal or plastic. Unlike flat guitar picks, which are held between the thumb and finger and used one at a time, fingerpicks clip onto or wrap around the end of the fingers...
ed, sometimes played with a slide
Slide (guitar technique)
A slide is a legato guitar technique where the player sounds one note, and then moves their finger up or down the fretboard to another fret. If done properly, the other note should also sound....
. He recorded many successful records in the late 1920s including "Kassie Jones", "Billy Lyons & Stack-O-Lee
Stagger Lee (song)
"Stagger Lee", also known as "Stagolee", "Stackerlee", "Stack O'Lee", "Stack-a-Lee" and several other variants, is a popular folk song based on the murder of William "Billy" Lyons by Stagger Lee Shelton...
" and "Judge Harsh Blues" (later called "Good Morning Judge").
In 1969, Lewis was recorded by the record producer
Record producer
A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
, Terry Manning
Terry Manning
Terry Manning is a music producer, songwriter, photographer and recording engineer known for work in rock, rhythm and blues, and pop music genres....
, at home in Lewis' Beale Street
Beale Street
Beale Street is a street in Downtown Memphis, Tennessee, which runs from the Mississippi River to East Street, a distance of approximately . It is a significant location in the city's history, as well as in the history of the blues. Today, the blues clubs and restaurants that line Beale Street are...
apartment. These recordings
Sound recording and reproduction
Sound recording and reproduction is an electrical or mechanical inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of sound recording technology are analog recording and digital recording...
were released in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
at the time by Barclay Records
Barclay Records
Barclay Records is a French record label founded in the mid-1950s by Eddie Barclay under the alias, Edouard Ruault. Eddie Barclay also founded the Riviera label in the early-1950s....
, and then again in the early 1990s by Lucky Seven Records in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, and again in 2006 by Universal
Universal Records
Universal Records was a record label owned by Universal Music Group, and it is now owned by Manny Patino and Michael Jackson, and operated as part of the Universal Motown Republic Group.-History:...
. Joni Mitchell
Joni Mitchell
Joni Mitchell, CC is a Canadian musician, singer songwriter, and painter. Mitchell began singing in small nightclubs in her native Saskatchewan and Western Canada and then busking in the streets and dives of Toronto...
's song, "Furry Sings the Blues", (on her Hejira
Hejira (album)
Hejira is a 1976 folk/rock/jazz album by Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell. The album title is a transliteration of the Arabic word hijra, which means "journey", referring specifically to the prophet Muhammad's and his followers' escape from Mecca to Medina in 622...
album
Album
An album is a collection of recordings, released as a single package on gramophone record, cassette, compact disc, or via digital distribution. The word derives from the Latin word for list .Vinyl LP records have two sides, each comprising one half of the album...
) is about Lewis and the Memphis music she experienced in the early 1970s. Lewis despised the Mitchell song and demanded she pay him royalties
Royalties
Royalties are usage-based payments made by one party to another for the right to ongoing use of an asset, sometimes an intellectual property...
.
In 1972 he was the featured performer in the Memphis Blues Caravan, which included Bukka White
Bukka White
Booker T. Washington White , better known as Bukka White, was an American Delta blues guitarist and singer. "Bukka" was not a nickname, but a phonetic misspelling of White's given name Booker, by his second record label .-Biography:Born between Aberdeen and Houston, Mississippi, White was the...
, Sleepy John Estes
Sleepy John Estes
John Adam Estes , best known as Sleepy John Estes or Sleepy John, was a American blues guitarist, songwriter and vocalist, born in Ripley, Lauderdale County, Tennessee.-Career:...
, Clarence Nelson, Hammy Nixon, Memphis Piano Red, Sam Chatmon
Sam Chatmon
Sam Chatmon was a Delta blues guitarist and singer. He was a member of the Mississippi Sheiks and may have been Charlie Patton's half brother.-Life and career:...
, and Mose Vinson
Mose Vinson
Mose Vinson was an American boogie-woogie, blues and jazz pianist and singer. His best known recordings were "Blues With A Feeling" and "Sweet Root Man". Over his lengthy career, Vinson worked with various musicians including Booker T. Laury and James Cotton.-Biography:Vinson was born in Holly...
.
Before he died, Lewis opened twice for The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones are an English rock band, formed in London in April 1962 by Brian Jones , Ian Stewart , Mick Jagger , and Keith Richards . Bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts completed the early line-up...
, played on Johnny Carson
Johnny Carson
John William "Johnny" Carson was an American television host and comedian, known as host of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson for 30 years . Carson received six Emmy Awards including the Governor Award and a 1985 Peabody Award; he was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 1987...
's The Tonight Show
The Tonight Show
The Tonight Show is an American late-night talk show that has aired on NBC since 1954. It is the longest currently running regularly scheduled entertainment program in the United States, and the third longest-running show on NBC, after Meet the Press and Today.The Tonight Show has been hosted by...
, and had a part in a Burt Reynolds
Burt Reynolds
Burton Leon "Burt" Reynolds, Jr. is an American actor. Some of his memorable roles include Bo 'Bandit' Darville in Smokey and the Bandit, Lewis Medlock in Deliverance, Bobby "Gator" McCluskey in White Lightning and sequel Gator, Paul Crewe and Coach Nate Scarborough in The Longest Yard and its...
movie
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
, W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings
W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings
W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings is a 1975 film directed by John G. Avildsen and written by Thomas Rickman. The 20th Century Fox film took place in 1957 and featured the first acting appearances of Jerry Reed and Brad Dourif....
(1975), and had a profile in Playboy magazine
Magazine
Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...
.
Lewis began to lose his eyesight because of cataract
Cataract
A cataract is a clouding that develops in the crystalline lens of the eye or in its envelope, varying in degree from slight to complete opacity and obstructing the passage of light...
s in his final years. He contracted pneumonia
Pneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...
in 1981, which led to his death from heart failure in Memphis on September 14 of that year, at the age of 88. He is buried in the Hollywood Cemetery in South Memphis, where his grave bears two headstones, the second purchased by fans.
See also
- List of blues musicians
- List of Blues revival musicians
- List of Country blues musicians
- Piedmont bluesPiedmont bluesPiedmont blues refers primarily to a guitar style, the Piedmont fingerstyle, which is characterized by a fingerpicking approach in which a regular, alternating thumb bass string rhythmic pattern supports a syncopated melody using the treble strings generally picked with the fore-finger,...
- List of Sire Records artists
- Anthology of American Folk MusicAnthology of American Folk MusicThe Anthology of American Folk Music is a six-album compilation released in 1952 by Folkways Records , comprising eighty-four American folk, blues and country music recordings that were originally issued from 1927 to 1932.Experimental filmmaker and notable eccentric Harry Smith compiled the music...