Blind Percy

Blind Percy was an early American blues harmonica player, little is known about his life. His recordings appeared under the name Blind Percy & His Blind Band . It is not known who the members of the "Blind Band" were, not even if they were all blind .

Blind Percy is considered to be one of the few in the history of the blues who played the harmonica on a "harmonica rack", as it was later e.g. B. Popularized Bob Dylan . This way of playing allows you to play a guitar at the same time.

It is sometimes suggested that Blind Percy is the same as Six Cylinder Smith , with no one hundred percent proof. Other opinions equate Six Cylinder Smith with Blind Joe Taggart , so that the circle is closed, Blind Percy is Blind Joe Taggart. However, there is no clear evidence, and all three may well have been different people.

There are no surviving photos of either Blind Percy or Six Cylinder Smith. Most of the known information about Blind Joe Taggart comes from Josh White , but he gave no indication as to whether Taggart went under the name Smith or Percy.

The Chicago blues guitarist Jimmie Lee Robinson was "a man named Blind Percy" as his teacher. This would mean that Blind Percy was in Chicago in the 1930s and 1940s . The recordings of Blind Percy in the late 1920s are generally assigned to the blues tradition of Texas , Louisiana and Arkansas .

Web links

• Biography at Allmusic Guide (English)