PHOTOS OF SON SEALS BY KURT SWANSON

RESERVATION BLUES FEB 2002 CHICAGO
www.reservation-blues.com

Son Seals:
Son was born in Osceola, Arkansas in 1942 and was immediately immersed into the blues. His childhood home was a few rooms in the back of his father Jim's juke joint, The Dipsy Doodle (famous for blues in the front and dice in the back). As a small child, Son was surrounded by great blues and great bluesmen. With musicians like Sonny Boy Williamson, Albert King and Robert Nighthawk playing within earshot of his bed nearly every night, Son knew the blues before he began walking.

Eddy Clearwater:
Clearwater, whose real name is Eddie Harrington, grew up listening to Delta blues and Country & Western records in Macon, Missisippi, where he was born in 1935. At age thirteen he moved to Birmingham, Alabama, and started playing guitar in church. He was still playing gospel music when he arrived on Chicago's South Side. But by 1953, having come from a family with a rich blues background (he's related to Carey Bell, Lurie Bell, and Lovey Lee) Eddy had made his move into blues. Performing as Guitar Eddy, he and his band worked the South and West Side taverns. And when he would finish his shift as a cab driver, he would spend hours in clubs listening to Otis Rush, Magic Sam, B.B. King, and Muddy Waters (Clearwater's stage name was later given to him by a booking agent as a word play on the name of Chicago's king of the blues.) ~bluesmans.de

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(thanks chuck)