HONEYBOY EDWARDS/ Complete early recordings 1942-69

 HONEYBOY EDWARDS/ Complete Early Recordings 1942-69

 Honeyboy Edwards a été un acteur important de l'histoire de la migration du blues du Delta vers Chicago. Né à Shaw (Ms) le 28 juin 1915 au coeur du Delta, David Edwards a longuement voyagé avec Robert Johnson et Big Joe Williams, Forgeant son propre style au contact de ces deux compères ainsi que d'autres dont il a croisé la route un moment, tels Charlie Patton, Son House, Tommy Mc Clennan, Tommy Johnson, Robert Petway et bien sûr son voisin Muddy Waters. Guidés par John Work, les Lomax découvrent Edwards en 1942 sur la plantation Stovall où il est manoeuvre agricole et l'enregistrent à Clarksdale. Cette superbe série de titres non commerciaux enregistrés pour la Bibliothèque du Congrès révèlent en Edwards un des plus doués de ces bluesmen du Delta de ces années 1940, avec un jeu de guitare en fingerpicking fluide, imaginatif et substantiellement moderne.

        

Honeyboy Edwards. Clarksdale 1942

     Comme Muddy Waters, Honeyboy aurait dû émigrer vers Chicago mais il préfère traîner au Texas, le temps de graver un beau Build myself a cave pour un obscur label local. Il remonte à Memphis où il enregistre pour Sam Phillips une des plus belles versions de Sweet home Chicago qui restera inédite pendant deux décennies et qui sera même un temps attribué au pianiste Albert Williams! Mais Edwards est aussi à Chicago, attire l'attention des frères Chess qui le font enregistrer quelques grands titres (Drop down mama) mais décident de ne pas les exploiter pour ne pas concurrencer Muddy Waters! Il reste encore au moins trois titres inédits dans les archives de Chess si celles-ci existent encore quelque part!

            Par la suite, Honeyboy fait partie des premiers Aces avec Fred Below et les frères Myers mais les quitte juste avant qu'ils n'enregistrent. Il est du premier Blues Revival mais la plupart des séances que produit à l'époque Pete Welding resteront aussi inédites. La malchance frappe encore lorsque Honeyboy est en 1969 dans les studios Chess avec Fleetwood Mac et que les deux titres qu'il enregistre alors ne sont pas retenus sur l'album original!

            Heureusement, Honeyboy, grâce à sa longévité, finira par enregistrer plusieurs albums la plupart du temps en solo, apparaître dans les grands festivals, faire des tournées internationales, un des derniers témoins du passage du blues du Delta à celui de Chicago.

            Il décède le 22 août 2011 à Chicago après avoir publié en 1997 sa superbe autobiographie (The world don't owe me nothing) que nous recommandons chaudement.

                                     Gérard HERZHAFT

            Born in Shaw (Ms) on June 28th, 1915, David "Honeyboy" Edwards has known and played with most of his local contemporaries, Robert Johnson, Big Joe Williams, Tommy Mc Clennan, Robert Petway and of course his neighbour Muddy Waters. He also learned from Charlie Patton, Tommy Johnson and Son House, all of whom he met and sometimes played with.

            Lead by African American musicologist John Work, John and Alan Lomax discovered Edwards on Stovall Plantation where David was a sharecropper. Work noted that here was "a skilled blues singer and guitarist as well as a clever young man". Thus Edwards was quite extensively recorded for the Library of Congress during two days of July 1942 in Clarksdale. Those recordings show an excellent singer and a very fluent, imaginative fingerpicking guitarist with a more modern approach than most of his local fellow bluesmen.

            Like Muddy Waters and so many others, Honeyboy should have migrate to Chicago and probably he would have started to record a thicker work and maybe become an important name of the post-war Chicago blues. But instead he preferred to drift here and there, working as a field hand a little bit everywhere in the Southern States and playing his music in juke joints and venues. His recorded output during the 1950's is unfortunately quite thin but of a very high quality. He waxed four sides in Texas (only two were issued), one striking version of Sweet Home Chicago in Memphis for Sam Phillips that will stay unissued for decades and even attributed to piano player Albert Williams (!)... When he hit Chicago in 1953, he eventually recorded for the Chess label four titles that Chess didn't issue because they thought Edwards's style was too close to Muddy Waters', which was of course true. Only one (Drop down mama) has been issued on LP, the remainder lays somewhere in the Chess vaults if there still is such a thing today!

            And that's it for his commercial recordings for the African American blues market! Honeyboy will also ne a member of the Aces with Below and the Myers brothers but once again won't record with them. He'll have to make a living outside of music during the 50's and 60's. And when Pete Welding brought him in the studio in 1964 and 1967 for the new public of the Blues Revival, most of the tracks Honeyboy recorded then would stay unissued until the CD years. In 1969, Edwards is part of the Fleetwood Mac's Chess sessions but - guess what - the two titles he takes as a leader will stay once again in the vaults until the 1990's!

            But at last, during the 1980's, Honeyboy's talents will be recognized. Edwards, as an elder witness of the henceforth legendary road that brought the Delta blues to Chicago and as an old partner of Robert Johnson, will record several CD's, be on major festival stages, tour Europe. He even will write in 1997 a gripping autobiography (The world don't owe me nothing) that should be in all blues libraries.

            Honeyboy Edwards died in Chicago on 22 August 2011.

                                                                       Gérard HERZHAFT

HONEYBOY EDWARDS/ Complete Early Recordings

Honeyboy Edwards, vcl/g/hca. Clarksdale, Ms. 20 juillet 1942

01. Spread my raincoat down

02. Chain Gang song 1 (You got to roll)

03. Chain Gang song 2

04. Stagolee

05. Just a spoonful

06. I love my Jelly roll

07. Hellatakin' blues

08. Worried life blues

09. Water Coast blues

10. The Army blues

11. Tear it down rag

Honeyboy Edwards, vcl/g/hca. Clarksdale, Ms. 22 juillet 1942

12. Wind howlin' blues

13. Roamin' and ramblin' blues

Honeyboy Edwards, vcl/g; Thunder Smith, pno. Houston, Tx. 1950

14. Build a cave

15. Who may your regular be?

Honeyboy Edwards, vcl/g; Albert Williams, pno; Joe Willie Wilkins, g; Dickie Houston, dms; James Walker, wbd. Memphis, Tn. 1952

16. Sweet home Chicago

Honeyboy Edwards, vcl/g; Gus Jenkins, pno; Willie Nix, dms. Chicago, Ill. 9 janvier 1953

17. Drop down mama

Honeyboy Edwards, vcl/g; John Lee Henley, hca. Chicago, Ill. 17 mars 1964

18. My baby's gone

19. Angel Child

20. Highway 61

21. Love me over slow

Honeyboy Edwards, vcl/g. Chicago, Ill. 29 juillet 1967

22. Just like Jesse James

23. Sweet home Chicago

24. Blues like showers of rain

25. Long tall woman blues

26. Love me over slow

27. Crawling kingsnake

28. Skin and bones blues

29. Bull cow blues

30. Worryin' woman blues

Honeyboy Edwards, vcl/g Big Walter Horton, hca; Buddy Guy, g; Peter Green, g; Willie Dixon, bs; Mick Fleetwood, dms. Chicago, Ill. 4 janvier 1969

31. My baby's gone

32. Honeyboy blues