I Am The Blues

I Am The Blues

Editorial Reviews
<"b0000c8xla2999"> About the Artist
Willie King was born in Prairie Point, MS, in 1943. After his father left, Willie and his siblings was raised by his grandparents, local sharecroppers. Music was important to the King family - Willie’s grandfather was a gospel singer, and his absent father was an amateur blues musician. Young Willie made a diddley bo by nailing a baling wire to a tree in the yard. By age 9 he had a one-string guitar that he could bring indoors to play at night.

In 1967, Willie King moved to Chicago in an attempt to make more money than he could down South. After a year spent on the West and South Side, he returned to Old Memphis, Alabama, just across the border from the Mississippi Prairie. A salesman - of shoes, cologne, and other frivolities - Willie traveled the rural roads hawking goods and talking politics. Choosing not to work under the "old system" of unequal treatment, King joined the civil rights movement near the end of the decade, eventually associating with the left-wing Highlander Center.

By the late 1970s, King was writing what he calls "struggling songs" - political blues tunes that he used to educate his audiences. As King explains "through the music I could reach more people, get ’em to listen." Yet as his rollicking blues style attests, King still knows how to have a good time. He played the juke circuit and bootlegged whiskey on the side, resorting to popular blues covers when the "struggling songs" upset a close-minded audience.

King work a lot in his own community, forging relationships with local youth through a blues education program and through his organization The Rural Members Association. The Rural Members Association has sponsored classes in music, woodworking, food preservation, and other African-American traditions, and has provided transportation, legal assistance, and other services for the needy over the past two decades. In recent years he’s been sponsoring a festival on the creek, which is as The Freedom Creek Festival. Willie explains, "We was targetin’ at tryin’ to get all walks of life, different people to come down and kinda be with us in reality down there, you know. Let’s get back to reality, in the woods . . . mix and mingle . . . get to know each other. Get up to have a workin’ relationship, try to bring peace . . ."

<"b0000c8xla4999"> Album Description
Blues Artist of the Year Willie King's self-produced masterpiece is a groovin', jumpin', juke boogie blast. The hypnotic grooves and outspoken lyrics make this CD a modern blues classic.

I Am The Blues, Music, Willie King, Electric Country Blues, Twice Living Blues Artist of the Year, Willie King's first self-produced CD is a masterpiece. Get on down to the real deal, juke joint boogie blues . . .

I Am The Blues

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