Page 21 - Akae Beka

Living Legend:

Charlie

Musselwhite

By Eric Steiner

Photo by Ÿ Marilyn Stringer

I first discovered Charlie Musselwhite in the 1970s while song by African American harmonica ace Sonny Terry, “Hootin’
working at WGLT at Illinois State University. At the time, I was a Blues.” I’d like to think that Sonny Terry drew young Charlie
work-study undergraduate student earning about $1.30 per hour. Musselwhite into the blues tribe as an impressionable teenager.
I was lucky because I had landed a good job in college radio Legend has it that Charlie ran moonshine in a 1950 Lincoln
with a seemingly endless library of long-playing records I could with a flathead V-8, and worked as a construction worker
borrow and play in my dorm room. Since then, WGLT affiliated around Shelby County and in predominantly African American
with National Public Radio and has developed award-winning, communities around West Memphis. Often, he was the only
world-class blues programming that streams 24/7 online. White worker on the jobsite. He earned the moniker “Memphis
To this day, I still play those early blues records that I found Charlie,” as he learned to play the guitar and harmonica, and
in the WGLT record library, especially Charlie Musselwhite’s discovered early country blues through the work of noted blues
seminal 1967 debut on Vanguard Records, Stand Back: Here scholar Samuel Charters. Local blues elders like Furry Lewis, Gus
Comes Charley Musselwhite’s Southside Band. It was simply a Cannon and Son Brimmer each mentored Musselwhite in his
delight to celebrate the 10th anniversary of that LP on the air! Memphis blues apprenticeship on guitar and harmonica.
While this Living Legend portrait may admittedly be more Like many of his fellow Mississippi-born bluesmen after World
personal than earlier articles in this Blues Festival Guide series, War II, Musselwhite came up from Memphis to the “City of the
I want to show readers how Charlie Musselwhite’s music has Big Shoulders” in the early 1960s to seek a higher paying
continued to inspire me since those early days as a college (meaning $3 per hour!) job in a factory. He quickly joined other
radio DJ. Perhaps more importantly, Charlie Musselwhite’s music White bluesmen, including Elvin Bishop, Nick Gravenites, Mike
has taught me the importance of being open to new cultural Bloomfield, Harvey Mandel and Paul Butterfield, as they learned
opportunities, learning from elders who have come before me, from masters like Little Walter, Howlin’ Wolf, Big Joe Williams
and appreciating the rich diversity and potential of blues music. and Elmore James at fabled blues venues like Magoo’s, Kelley’s
Musselwhite was born in Kosciusko, Attala County, MS, on and Big John’s. As blues fans, we are all supremely blessed for
January 31, 1944. His father was an itinerant musician who did Muddy Waters’ mentorship of Charlie Musselwhite as a 22-year-
odd jobs to help his young family, and when Charlie was three, old newly arrived bluesman in Chicago. Muddy noticed an
they relocated to Memphis. Charlie’s parents divorced after their uncommon spark in his latest South Side protégé and introduced
move, and then Charlie focused on joining the world of work him to a very rough-and-tumble club scene.
as soon as he could. While he lived in Memphis, an important During his five-year residency in Chicago, Charlie, like
cultural touchstone of his life was AM radio. Specifically, Charlie many aspiring bluesmen, gravitated toward Bob Koester’s
tuned in to WDIA, billed as “Your All-Colored Station” that legendary Jazz Record Mart on Adams Street, where he met
featured Rufus Thomas’ nightly blues program with a theme blues writer Pete Welding (who later contributed liner notes to his

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