Eddie Boyd born 25 November 1914

Edward Riley Boyd known as Eddie Boyd (November 25, 1914–July 13, 1994) was a blues piano player born on Stovall's
Plantation near Clarksdale, Mississippi, where Muddy Waters also lived.
 

As a youth, he taught himself how to play piano and guitar, and he worked the jukes joints in and around the Mississippi delta and then moved to Memphis in 1936. In Memphis he often played on Beale Street with his band the Dixie Rhythm Boys. Hoping to record, Boyd followed the great migration northward to the factories of Chicago in 1941. Boyd was a stellar lyricist who sang with a suave, sometimes jazzy delivery, and his piano playing was the perfect accompaniment to his singing. A sparse and rhythmic left hand allowed room for a jabbing and twinkling right which never played more than was needed.

He won himself a place among the popular blues musicians of the day, people like Big Bill Broonzy, John Lee 'Sonny Boy' Williamson and Memphis Slim, accompanied Sonny Boy ('the first' from 1941 until 1946, and made recordings with him. Jazz Gillum and other artists attached to the Victor and Bluebird labels.

 

In April 1947 he cut his first record on his own, as 'Little Eddie Boyd and his Boogie Band'. His real fame as a solo performer started a few years later, in 1952, when he recorded the first version of his 'Five Long Years', the song which has since then become his trademark. From 1953 until early 1957 he was under contract with the Chess label -the name which epitomizes the Chicago blues style of the fifties as Bluebird did for the previous decade.

 

After a very serious automobile accident in that year Boyd drifted back into obscurity. But then, in the sixties, the blues was discovered by a new and bigger than ever public, especially in Europe, and he could have his share in this revived interest. In 1965 he come to Europe with the American Folk Blues Festival tour In London he made his first long-playing record 'Five Long Years', and after the tour he decided to stay for a while in Europe, following the example set by other blues pianists like Memphis Slim, Champion Jack Dupree and Curtis Jones.

Tired of the racial discrimination he experienced in the United States, he first moved to Belgium, and then settled in Finland in 1970. He recorded ten blues records in Finland, the first being Praise to Helsinki (1970). He married his wife, Leila, in 1977. His last blues gig took place in 1984. After that he performed only gospel.
 

Boyd underwent heart surgery for replacement of a defective valve in 1980.  His last record was a cassette of religious music in 1993.  Eddie Boyd died in Melilahti Hospital, Helsinki, Finland, on July 13, 1994 (info mainly Wikipedia)