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Johnny Shines

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Johnny Shines
Shines performing at the 1991 Chicago Blues Festival
Shines performing at the 1991 Chicago Blues Festival
Background information
Birth nameJohn Ned Shines
Born(1915-04-26)April 26, 1915
Frayser, Tennessee,U.S.
DiedApril 20, 1992(1992-04-20)(aged 76)
Tuscaloosa, Alabama,U.S.
GenresBlues
Instruments
  • Guitar
  • vocals
Years active1932–1992
Labels

John Ned Shines(April 26, 1915 – April 20, 1992)[1]was anAmericanbluessinger and guitarist.

Biography

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Shines was born inFrayser, Tennessee,today a neighborhood ofMemphis.[1]He was taught to play the guitar by his mother and spent most of his childhood in Memphis, playingslide guitarat an early age injuke jointsand on the street.[1]He moved toHughes, Arkansas,in 1932 and worked on farms for three years, putting aside his music career.[2]A chance meeting withRobert Johnson,his greatest influence, gave him the inspiration to return to music.[1]In 1935, Shines began traveling with Johnson, touring in the United States and Canada.[1]They parted in 1937, one year before Johnson's death.[2]

Shines played throughout the southern United States until 1941, when he settled in Chicago.[3]There he found work in the construction industry but continued to play in local bars.[1]

He made his first recording in 1946 forColumbia Records,but the takes were never released.[3]He recorded forChess Recordsin 1950, but again no records were released.[3]He kept playing with blues musicians in the Chicago area for several more years. In 1952, Shines recorded what is considered his best work, forJ.O.B. Records.[1]The recordings were a commercial failure, and Shines, frustrated with the music industry, sold his equipment and returned to working in construction.[1]

In 1966,Vanguard Recordsfound Shines taking photographs in a Chicago blues club, and he recorded tracks for the third volume ofChicago/The Blues/Today!.[1]The album became a blues classic, and it brought Shines into the mainstream music scene.[1]Shines toured with the Chicago All Stars alongsideLee Jackson,Big Walter HortonandWillie Dixon.[1]

Shines moved toHolt, Alabama,inTuscaloosa County,in 1969. Natalie Mattson, a student at the University of Alabama, learned that he was living in the area and invited him to play at a campus coffee house, the Down Under, which she ran. Shines played there on several occasions and brought his friend, blues artistMississippi Fred McDowell,to perform with him. These were some of his earliest appearances in Alabama after his move there. He continued to play the international blues circuit while living in Holt.[4]

"Born in 1915, Shines is the most vigorous surviving practitioner of acousticDelta blues.With his intense vibrato, his observant, imaginative, yet tradition-soaked lyrics, and his incomparable slide guitar, he ought to be recorded once a year by theLibrary of Congress."

—Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies(1981)[5]

In the late 1960s and 1970s, Shines toured withRobert Lockwood, Jr.,Robert Johnson's stepson, another one of the last living originalDelta bluesmusicians.[3]In 1980, Shines's career was brought to a standstill when he suffered a stroke.[3]He later appeared and played in the 1991 documentaryThe Search for Robert Johnson.His final album,Back to the Country,with accompaniment bySnooky PryorandJohnny Nicholas,won aW. C. Handy Award.[1][3]

In 1989, Shines metKent DuChaine,and the two of them toured for the next several years, until Shines's death.[6]

Shines died on April 20, 1992, inTuscaloosa, Alabama.[1]He was inducted into theBlues Hall of Famelater the same year.

According to the music journalist Tony Russell,

Shines was that rare being, a blues artist who overcame age and rustiness to make music that stood up beside the work of his youth. When Shines came back to the blues in 1965 he was 50, yet his voice had the leonine power of a dozen years before, when he made records his reputation was based on.[3]

Discography

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See also

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References

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  1. ^abcdefghijklmHuey, Steve."Johnny Shines: Biography".AllMusic.RetrievedMay 27,2009.
  2. ^abJohnny Shines interviewed byJohn Hammond Jr.inThe Search for Robert Johnson(UK, 1991).
  3. ^abcdefgRussell, Tony (1997).The Blues: From Robert Johnson to Robert Cray.Dubai: Carlton Books. p. 166.ISBN1-85868-255-X.
  4. ^"Johnny Shines Dead; Delta Blues Singer, 76".New York Times.April 21, 1992.
  5. ^Christgau, Robert(1981)."Consumer Guide '70s: S".Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies.Ticknor & Fields.ISBN089919026X.RetrievedMarch 12,2019– via robertchristgau.
  6. ^"Kent DuChaine & Leadbessie".Kent DuChaine.RetrievedJanuary 12,2021.

Further reading

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  • Cole, Barry M. "Johnny Shines: The Great River".Blues Revue: The Blues Authority,no. 65 (March 2001), pp. 21-22.
  • Blues Who's Who,Sheldon Harris,Da Capo, 1979,ISBN0-306-80155-8
  • The Search for Robert Johnson,John Hammond, Columbia Legacy, 1982,ISBN0-7389-0079-6
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