SBBS Album Promo: Roamin' and Ramblin'

early in his career, with his first tracks being recorded by Alan Lomax in 1942 for the Library of Congress. Like many other African Americans, Honeyboy left the South in the early fifties and moved up to Chicago which has been his home base ever since. In 1953 he recorded several songs with Chess records,

the W.C. Handy award for Acoustic Blues Artist of the year. Whether he's performing solo with his guitar like he did in 1942, or matching note for note with a harmonica in 2007 the man is an incredible performer. At ninety-two years of age, which he was in the fall of 2007, he had more get up and go in his performance than most guys even one third his age seem to be able to generate. Of course the stuff that make his performance so remarkable is the very stuff that's been working against Blues music ever really gaining widespread popularity.

You only have to listen to somebody like Dave "Honeyboy" Edwards' latest release, Roamin' and Ramblin', on the Earwig Music label, to hear how how raw and honest the Blues can be. "Honeyboy" was born in 1915 in Shaw Mississippi & is one of the last of the great Delta Bluesmen left among us anymore. Like most of his contemporaries he did very little commercial recording

but they were never issued until recent years. That's not to say he didn't make any records, but the majority of his music in the appears to have been released on various anthologies, rather than under his own name up until the late 1970's. In 1979 when Michael Frank founded Earwig Records, Honeyboy recorded his first disc under his own name since 1953 with the release of Old Friends. Since then he has released another eight albums, won a Grammy for Best Traditional Blues Album for Mississippi Delta Bluesman in 2001, and in 2007 was awarded

Its full of raw, honest emotion without any compromise. He sings directly from the heart at all times and makes you truly understand what the word soul means when talked about in terms of music. Hearing his rough hewn voice accompanied by the lonesome sound of the great harmonica players on this disc is enough to send chills up your spine on more than one occasion. - Leap In The Dark,
Richard Marcus 2008