Eddie Thompson born 31 May 1925

Edgar Charles Thompson, known professionally as Eddie Thompson (31 May 1925 – 6 November 1986) was a British jazz pianist. 

Thompson was born blind in Shoreditch, London, England. He attended the same school for the blind (Linden Lodge, Wandsworth), as George Shearing and was introduced to jazz through listening to the family radio and listening to Fats Waller, Earl Hines, and especially Art Tatum. By 1947 he was part of the London jazz scene and was able to supplement his jazz income, always precarious, with a career as a piano tuner. In the late 1940's he recorded with Johnny Dankworth and a very young Victor Feldman. 

Eddie with Tommy Whittle's band

In 1949 he played at the Paris Jazz Fair with Carlo Krahmer band and worked for a time with Victor Feldman's Sextet. He had his own quintet and trio during the early 1950s and also worked with Tony Crombie, Freddy Randall, Vic Ash, Ronnie Scott and Tommy Whittle (1957/8). At the end of the 1950s he again had his own trio and quintet. He was house pianist at Ronnie Scott's 1959-60 and also did solo work at the Downbeat Club, London during 1960 before emigrating to the USA in 1962. He secured a residency at the Hickory House between 1963-67 and made many musical friendships including Duke Ellington, Erroll Garner, and Thelonious Monk. He also performed at various clubs and recorded as leader and soloist. 

Thompson returned to the London area in 1972 for regular BBC Jazz Club gigs, and he recorded for the German BASF label and Doug Dobell's 77 label. He toured as a soloist, in a duo with Roger Kellaway and with his trio, visiting the USA, Australia. New Zealand and Europe. He played regularly at the Pizza Express in London. He regularly travelled up to Stockport on Fridays, with his dog of course. During the day he would perform piano tuning at Nield and Hardy's, one of the two major musical instrument stores in the town. Just round the corner from the store was the Warren Buckley pub and beneath was a jazz cellar where Eddie (with dog under the piano) played during the evening with two local musicians making up the trio. One notable evening touring American greats, Al Grey and Buddy Tate who was deputising for Jimmy Forrest, played a memorable session with Eddie's trio. 

                             

He made further recordings in 1978, 1980 and 1983 including When Lights Are Low and Memories Of You.. He performed on television and radio and played frequently at various clubs in London. Eddie's strength other than his prodigious technique was that he knew literally hundreds of tunes with a preference for Gershwin. 

He also had the ability, when he felt it necessary, to drop into the style of his heroes Garner, Peterson, and Nat ColeHe was a frequent first choice for accompanying visiting US musicians until the mid 1980s. He was at home playing mainstream or bop and possessed a prodigious technique and the ability, when he felt it necessary, to drop into the style of his heroes Garner, Peterson, and Nat Cole. Although blind he travelled to evening work in London clubs by the Underground, and also to clubs throughout the UK. 

Derek Sheinwald who knew Eddie for many years and played drums at times for him recollected "Eddie always wore a waistcoat, 4 pockets, Jacket 3 pockets, Trousers 2 pockets. why?   Ha'penny- Penny - Theepenny piece - sixpence - Shilling - Florin - Half Crown - Ten shilling note - Pound note. each distributed in order that when purchasing (for example drinks at a bar) he could offer exact money and not hold his hand out for change which if not given carefully could scatter. 

Due to a lifelong smoking habit, he developed emphysema which contributed to his early death on 6th November, 1986, at the age of 61. At the time of his death he was noted as being at "the height of his powers" as well as having a considerable musical repertoire.

(Edited from Wikipedia, New Grove Dictionary of Jazz & Henry Bebop)

Pee Wee Erwin born 30 May 1913

George "Pee Wee" Erwin (May 30, 1913 – June 20, 1981) was an American jazz trumpeter. 

An excellent trumpeter who spent most of his career on the fringe of fame, Pee Wee Erwin made many fine records during his career. He was born in Falls City, Nebraska, United States. Erwin started on trumpet at age four and made his first radio broadcast four years later. 

He had his first professional engagement as a soloist with the radio station of the Kansas City Star on a program called "The Night Hawks" on Station WDAF in 1921. He also played with the Coon-Sanders Band, which was well known in Chicago, in 1922-23. He then played in several territory bands on the Orpheum circuit before joining the groups of Joe Haymes (1931–33) and Isham Jones (1933–34). 

He then moved to New York City. His wide range and skills as a sight reader and improvisor caused him to be much in demand for radio sessions. He played with Benny Goodman in 1934-35, then with Ray Noble in 1935; the next year he rejoined Goodman, taking Bunny Berigan's empty chair. In 1937, he again followed Berigan, this time in Tommy Dorsey's orchestra, where he remained until 1939. 

                              

Erwin put together an unsuccessful big band in 1941-1942 and tried again with little luck in 1946. In 1949 he began leading an ensemble which became resident at Nick's in New York City, for much of the 1950s.He  settled in New Milford, New Jersey, and played Dixieland jazz in New Orleans. Erwin led sessions on an occasional basis in the 1950s, including a couple for United Artists. In the 1960s formed his own trumpet school with Chris Griffin; among its graduates was Warren Vaché.

He also became increasingly active in radio and TV work. On the NYC staff of CBS, he played regularly for the Garry Moore, Carol Burnett, Candid Camera and Jackie Gleason shows. From 1963 on he had a weekly radio jazz show with Ed Joyce. His playing retained its spirit and verve throughout the following decade, when he toured Europe with Warren Covington, the Kings of Jazz (his own band, 1974) and the New York Jazz Repertory Company. 

Pee Wee Erwin and made six albums during 1980-1981, including three for Qualtro and one for Jazzology, still sounding quite good that late in his career. He also  published "This Horn for Hire" with Warren W. Vaché, Sr. In May 1981, Erwin performed at the Breda Jazz Festival in the Netherlands, weeks before his death on June 20, 1981 in Teaneck, New Jersey, at the age of 68. 

(Edited from Wikipedia, AllMusic & Altissimo) 

Carl Story born 29 May 1916

Carl Story (May 29, 1916 – March 31, 1995 was an American bluegrass musician, and leader of his band the Rambling Mountaineers. He was dubbed "The Father of Bluegrass Gospel Music" by the governor of Oklahoma. He recorded  more than 65 gospel albums, most of them on the Starday label. 

Story was born in Lenoir, North Carolina, United States, into a musically inclined family. His mother played the guitar and his father was an old-time fiddle player who enjoyed collecting recordings of Charlie Poole, Grayson and Whitter, and others.  Carl took up the fiddle at age nine and eventually learned guitar and clawhammer banjo. In the early 1930s, after winning a fiddle contest, he joined J. E. Clark and the Lonesome Mountaineers performing at WLVA in Lynchburg, Virginia. In 1934, he formed the Rambling Mountaineers together with banjo player Johnny Whisnant and guitarists Dudley Watson and Ed McMahan. 

Within a year they played over radio station WHKY in Hickory, North Carolina. It later led to performances at WSPA in Spartanburg, South Carolina and WWNC in Asheville, North Carolina. They recorded for ARC in 1939 and Okeh Records in 1940; however, these recordings were never issued. Story played with Bill Monroe in 1942 as a fiddler - replacing Howdy Forrester who had been drafted - but eventually Story was also drafted in October 1943. 

After his discharge from the U.S. Navy in 1945, he began reforming and performing with his Rambling Mountaineers on the Mid-Day Merry-Go-Round show at WNOX in Knoxville, Tennessee. In 1947, he recorded for the Mercury label. At the recording sessions of 1947, Story temporarily labelled his band the Melody Four Quartet. During the 1950s, Carl Story's Rambling Mountaineers performed on the Farm and Fun Time Show at WCYB in Bristol, Virginia and on the Cas Walker Show over WBIR-TV in Knoxville, Tennessee. His Mountaineers also appeared on radio stations WAYS in Charlotte, North Carolina, WEAS in Decatur, Georgia, and WLOS in Asheville, North Carolina. 

                          

He had a new recording contract on Columbia Records in 1953. Two years later he was back to Mercury Records. In 1957, he switched label to Starday Records, where he stayed for eighteen years. Many of Carl Story's Starday Records albums featured the talents of the Knoxville-based Brewster brothers, Bud and Willie G., along with Claude Boone. It was an extremely talented line-up of musicians. They traveled the country performing great shows and selling lots of records. In early 1957, Carl and his band stopped in Monticello, Kentucky for a show. It was there that he met his wife-to-be, Helen Guffey. In the fall of 1957, Carl returned to Monticello and was hired as a disc jockey at WFLW radio station. He re-met Helen and they started dating. 

About the time that Carl began living and working in Monticello, Mercury Records released the very first bluegrass gospel album ever: "Gospel Quartet Favorites" by Carl Story, which contained timeless classics like There's A Light At The River, Family Reunion and My Lord Keeps a Record, all of which exemplified Story’s raw-edged, “mountain style” of bluegrass singing defined by his distinctive high baritone harmony part and excellent songwriting ability. Following the album's release, Carl and Helen were married. The date was July 17, 1959. They moved to South Carolina, but returned to Monticello in November of 1960, where Carl began a second tenure at WFLW. 

Helen and Carl Story

Carl and his wife Helen left Monticello in late 1960 or early 1961 and moved to nearby Albany, Kentucky, where Carl worked for a few months at WANY radio station. Soon, Carl and Helen left Albany and moved to South Carolina. Carl Story spent the last thirty years of his life in Greer, South Carolina. 

In the 1970s, Carl recorded for several labels, most notably Atteiram Records of Marietta, Georgia, and the newly founded CMH label of Los Angeles, a joint venture involving Arthur “Guitar Boogie” Smith and former Starday staffer Martin Haerle.  Initial releases on CMH usually consisted of lavishly produced two-LP sets that featured re-recorded versions of past hits.  Such was the case with Carl’s The Bluegrass Gospel Collection.  Single CMH albums included Mountain Music and A Lonesome Wail From the Hills. 

Carl spent the last thirty years of his life in Greer, South Carolina, where he headquartered the Rambling Mountaineers.  As he had done throughout the earlier portions of his career, he supplemented his touring schedule by working during the week as a disc jockey.  His last DJ work was a five-year stint on WESC in nearby Greenville, South Carolina.  Carl passed away in March of 1995 from complications of heart bypass surgery. He was 78 years old.  His funeral was attended by bluegrass royalty, from Bill Monroe on down. 

He was placed in the Bluegrass Hall of Fame in 2007. 

(Edited from Wikipedia & Bluegrass Hall Of Fame) 

Papa John Creach born 28 May 1917

John Henry Creach (May 28, 1917 – February 22, 1994), better known as Papa John Creach, was an American blues violinist who also played classical, jazz, R&B, pop and acid rock music. Early in his career, he performed as a journeyman musician with Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller, Stuff Smith, Charlie Christian, Big Joe Turner, T-Bone Walker, Nat King Cole and Roy Milton. 

Following his rediscovery by drummer Joey Covington in 1967, he fronted a variety of bands (including Zulu and Midnight Sun) in addition to playing with Jefferson Airplane, Hot Tuna, Jefferson Starship, the San Francisco All-Stars (1979–1984), Dinosaurs (1982–1989) and Steve Taylor. 

Creach recorded a number of solo albums and guested at several Grateful Dead and Charlie Daniels Band concerts. He was a regular guest at the early annual Volunteer Jams, hosted by Charlie Daniels, which exposed him to a new audience that was receptive to fiddle players. 

Creach was born in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, near the border of Ohio. As a child, he was introduced to the violin by an uncle, and he received both tutoring in the instrument and conservatory training. Creach and his family moved to Chicago in 1935. Once he relocated to Chicago, the teenager began playing violin in bars. He performed some symphonic work with the Illinois Symphony Orchestra when he was in his early 20s, which was unusual for a black musician at the time. At one point, he joined a local cabaret trio called the Chocolate Music Bars and toured the Midwest and Canada with them. 

According to Creach, knowing how to play in a variety of styles was a necessity to survive as a musician in Chicago at the time: “Because of all the nationalities there, I had to learn to play everything. At some jobs it was strictly German music, or Polish. Now, they used to dance and knock holes in the floor.” 

He had some difficulty in learning to play jazz violin, having to adjust his bowing technique, but was helped when he purchased an electric violin in 1943. Moving to Los Angeles in 1945, he played in the Chi Chi Club, worked on an ocean liner for five years, appeared in several films, including with Nat King Cole in Fritz Lang's The Blue Gardenia, and performed as a duo with Nina Russell. He performed in cocktail lounges all over California for the next 20 years with the Johnny Creach Trio. 

Creach initially met and befriended drummer Joey Covington at a union hiring hall in Los Angeles in 1967. When Covington joined Jefferson Airplane in 1970, he introduced Creach to them. In autumn 1970, he was invited to join both Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna, Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady's side band. He was nicknamed Papa due to being much older than the other band members. He remained with both groups while also recording and touring as a solo artist for Jefferson Airplane's Grunt Records. During this period, his backing band Zulu included guitarist Keb' Mo'. 

                              

Creach left Hot Tuna in 1973, but remained on board when Jefferson Airplane was reorganized as Jefferson Starship in 1974. He toured and recorded with Jefferson Starship from 1974 to 1975, a period that included platinum selling album Red Octopus (1975). In August 1975, Creach left the band to focus on his solo career. Nevertheless, he remained on amicable terms with the group and briefly returned as a touring member for the band's spring 1978 engagements. 

A year later, Creach renewed his working relationship with Covington as a member of the San Francisco All-Stars. He also performed with Covington's Airplane predecessor Spencer Dryden as a member of Dinosaurs. Creach continued to make occasional guest appearances with Hot Tuna. He was performing with them at the Fillmore Auditorium in 1988 when Jack Casady and Jorma Kaukonen of Hot Tuna reunited with Paul Kantner and Grace Slick for the first time on stage since 1972. 

In 1992, Mr. Creach recorded "Papa Blues," his first CD and his first all-blues set, with the Bernie Pearl Blues Band. The album received widespread acclaim. Also that year Creach joined Kantner as a member of the relaunched Jefferson Starship and performed with them until his death. In1993 the Memphis-based Blues Foundation presented him with its W. C. Handy Award as an outstanding blues musician. 

Creach succumbed to congestive heart failure on February 22, 1994 at Midway Hospital, Los Angeles, California. He had been suffering from a heart condition that had been causing continual fluid build-up in his lungs, resulting in bouts of pneumonia. He was 76 years old . 

(Edited from Wikipedia & The New York Times)

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Albert Nicholas born 27 May 1900

Albert Nicholas (May 27, 1900 – September 3, 1973) was an American jazz clarinetist and saxophonist. 

A superb clarinetist with an attractive mellow tone, Albert Nicholas had a long and diverse career but his playing was always consistently rewarding. He studied with Lorenzo Tio, Jr. in his hometown of New Orleans, and late in the 1910’s he played with cornet legends Buddy Petit, King Oliver, and Manuel Perez while in his teens. It was in his late teens that he learned to play alto sax and led his own band at Tom Anderson’s Annex in 1922. After three years in the Merchant Marines, he joined King Oliver in Chicago for much of 1925-1927, recording with Oliver's Dixie Syncopators. 

He spent a year in the Far East and Egypt, arriving in New York in 1928 to join Luis Russell for five years. Nicholas, who had recorded in several settings in the 1920s, sounded perfectly at home with Russell, taking his solos alongside Red Allen, J.C. Higginbottham, and Charlie Holmes. He also played with Chick Webb and would later re-join Russell when the pianist had the backup orchestra for Louis Armstrong a few years later. Nicholas also worked with Jelly Roll Morton in 1939 (he had recorded with Morton previously in 1929). 

Things slowed down for a time in the early '40s, He played in a series of bands until 1941 when he took a job as a guard on the New York Subway, but the New Orleans revival got him working again in the mid-'40s with Art Hodes, Bunk Johnson, and Kid Ory. Nicholas recorded and performed widely during the New Orleans revival of the 1940s and 50s, including documenting a number of Creole songs (such as Salée Dame and Mo Pas Lemmé Ça) for the Circle label in 1947. 

                             

By 1948, the clarinetist was playing regularly with Ralph Sutton's trio at Jimmy Ryan's. In 1953, Nicholas followed Sidney Bechet's example and moved to France where he happily remained until his move to Switzerland in 1970. Aside from two brief visits to the United states in 1959 and 1960, he spent the rest of his career in Europe, playing concerts and touring twice a year with the Dutch Swing College Band. 

Nicholas must be considered one of the outstanding clarinetists in the New Orleans tradition, and the recordings from the last two decades of his life show a sensitivity to the changes that had taken place in jazz. His style was influenced by the blues and he frequently made use of the rich, lower register of his instrument and, in the higher register, dirty “whiskey-toned” inflections. 

Nicholas died on 3 September 1973 in a hospital at Basel, Switzerland, after failing to recover from a recent operation. He was 73. 

(Edited from AllMusic, Music Rising at Tulane, New Grove Dictionary Of Jazz & Wikipedia)

 

Moondog (Louis Thomas Hardin) born 26 May 1916

Louis Thomas Hardin (May 26, 1916 – September 8, 1999), known professionally as Moondog, was an American composer, musician, performer, music theoretician, poet and inventor of musical instruments. 

Hardin was born in Marysville, Kansas, to Louis Thomas Hardin, an Episcopalian minister, and Norma Alves. Hardin started playing a set of drums that he made from a cardboard box at the age of five. His family relocated to Wyoming, where his father opened a trading post at Fort Bridger. 

On July 4, 1932, the 16-year-old Hardin found an object in a field which he did not realise was a dynamite cap. While he was handling it, the explosive detonated in his face and permanently blinded him. His older sister, Ruth, would read to him daily after the accident for many years. Here he had his first encounters with philosophy, science and myth that formed his character. One book in particular, The First Violin, inspired him to pursue music. Up to that point he had been interested mainly in percussion instruments, but from then on, he became obsessed with the desire to become a composer. 

After learning the principles of music in several schools for blind young men across middle America, he taught himself the skills of ear training and composition. He studied with Burnet Tuthill at the Iowa School for the Blind.He then moved to Batesville, Arkansas, where he lived until 1942, when he obtained a scholarship to study in Memphis, Tennessee. Although he was largely self-taught in music, learning predominantly by ear, he learned some music theory from books in braille during his time in Memphis. 

In 1943, Hardin moved to New York, where he met classical musicians including Leonard Bernstein and Arturo Toscanini, as well as jazz performers such as Charlie Parker and Benny Goodman, whose upbeat tempos and often humorous compositions would influence Hardin's later work. One of his early street posts was near the 52nd Street nightclub strip, and he was known to jazz musicians. 

By 1947, Hardin had adopted the name "Moondog" in honour of a dog "who used to howl at the moon more than any dog I knew of." From the late 1940s until 1972, Moondog lived as a street musician and poet in New York City, playing in midtown Manhattan, eventually settling on the corner of 53rd or 54th Street and Sixth Avenue in Manhattan. He was rarely if ever homeless, and maintained an apartment in upper Manhattan and had a country retreat in Candor, New York, to which he moved full-time in 1972. 

                             

He partially supported himself by selling copies of his poetry and his musical philosophy. In addition to his music and poetry, he was also known for the distinctive fanciful "Viking" cloak that he wore. Already bearded and long-haired, he added a Viking-style horned helmet to avoid the occasional comparisons of his appearance with that of Christ or a monk, as he had rejected Christianity in his late teens. He developed a lifelong interest in Nordic mythology, and maintained an altar to Thor in his country home in Candor. 

In 1949, he traveled to a Blackfoot Sun Dance in Idaho where he performed on percussion and flute, returning to the Native American music he first came in contact with as a child. It was this Native music, along with contemporary jazz and classical, mixed with the ambient sounds from his environment (city traffic, ocean waves, babies crying, etc.) that created the foundation of Moondog's music. 

In 1954, he won a case in the New York State Supreme Court against disc jockey Alan Freed, who had branded his radio show, "The Moondog Rock and Roll Matinee", around the name "Moondog", using "Moondog's Symphony" (the first record that Moondog ever cut) as his "calling card"  Moondog believed he would not have won the case had it not been for the help of musicians such as Benny Goodman and Arturo Toscanini, who testified that he was a serious composer. Freed had to apologize and stop using the nickname "Moondog" on air, on the basis that Hardin was known by the name long before Freed began using it. 

Along with his passion for Nordic culture, Moondog had an idealised view of Germany, where he settled in 1974. He revisited the United States briefly in 1989, for a tribute at the New Music America Festival in Brooklyn, in which festival director Yale Evelev asked him to conduct the Brooklyn Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra, stimulating a renewed interest in his music. 

Eventually, a young German student named Ilona Goebel (later known as Ilona Sommer) helped Moondog set up the primary holding company for his artistic endeavors and hosted him, first in Oer-Erkenschwick, and later on in Münster in Westphalia. Moondog lived with Sommer's family and they spent time together in Münster. During that period, Moondog created hundreds of compositions which were transferred from Braille to sheet music by Sommer. Moondog spent the remainder of his life in Germany. 

On 8 September 1999, he died in Münster from heart failure. He is buried at the Central Cemetery Münster.    (Edited from Wikipedia) 

Bill Dicey born 25 May 1936

Bill Dicey (May 25, 1936 – March 17, 1993) was an American blues harmonicist, singer and songwriter. He recorded two live albums and one studio album in his own name, as well as playing the harmonica and singing on a number of other musician's recordings. He was a regular fixture in the New York blues scene from the 1970s to the time of his death. 

William J. Dicey was born in Annapolis, Maryland, United States, and first played the harmonica at the age of three, but began an interest in blues harmonica styling five years later. Having been given a Hohner Marine Band model, Dicey began playing on street corners with black musicians from his neighborhood. By his mid-teens, Dicey was playing the drums in an otherwise all-black group, playing R&B numbers of the time. In 1953, the whole ensemble were drafted with Dicey joining the United States Air Force. Interest in music had waned by the time all the individuals had returned to civilian life, with Dicey giving up playing music in 1959. 

He relocated to Atlanta, Georgia in the mid-1960s and took up playing the harmonica again, working with Buddy Moss on some ultimately unreleased recordings. Together they formed the Atlanta Blues Band, which toured colleges and clubs in the South in the late-1960s. Around this time, Dicey settled in New York City, where he became associated with Charles Walker. Dicey also became a regular session musician with Spivey Records. As a part of Victoria Spivey's house band, Dicey subsequently provided backing on recordings made by Roosevelt Sykes, Big Joe Turner, Lloyd Glenn, Washboard Doc, Louisiana Red, Sugar Blue and Eunice Davis. 

Bill Dicey & Robert Ross

Dicey became a vital member of the New York blues scene over the next two decades. He was the founder and host of the Sunday jam session at the New York blues club, Dan Lynch's Bar and Grill, where his duties including booking acts and leading the club's resident musical ensemble. His tutelage provided an early musical outlet for both the Holmes Brothers and Popa Chubby.

                             

Dicey became known for being able to play the "C" harmonica in five keys. Still associated with Spivey Records, Dicey recorded a live album, Caught in the Act, at Dan Lynch's in 1980. In 1983, Operator! Operator! I'm Trying to Get in Touch With My Baby Again! was another live album issued by Spivey Records, accredited to 'Bill Dicey With the Fabulous Holmes Brothers With Popsy'. 

The only studio album recorded by Dicey in his own name took place in London in 1987. Dicey's regular Dan Lynch's Bar and Grill guitarist, Richard Studholme, had moved back to his native England, and Dicey visited him there when the notion of recording an album bore fruit. Bill Dicey (harmonica, guitar, vocals), Richard 'Ted' Studholme (guitar), Phil Kitto (bass), and Kevin Spratt (drums) provided the music which was recorded at Samurai Studio, close to Borough High Street, London, with recording engineer, Jack Ezra. The resultant recording was released as Fool In Love, on JSP Records. Three other tracks were recorded around that time for a BBC Radio session at the Maida Vale Studios by the same musicians; these comprised the bonus tracks that were included in the Fool in Love – The Complete Sessions re-release in 2019. 

Dicey died of cancer in March 1993, at Rock Hall, Maryland. He was 56 years old. His last words were, "This sucks". 

In addition to those recordings described above, Dicey's harmonica playing, and sometimes vocals, can be heard on Louisiana Red's Louisiana Red Sings the Blues (1972, Atco Records), Jerry McCain, Frank Frost, and Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup's Harpin' on It (1972, Carnival Gold Standard), Paul Oscher's New York Really Has the Blues (1975, Spivey Records), The Best of Louisiana Red (1995, Evidence Records), and Pinetop Perkins' posthumous compilation, Chicago Boogie Blues Piano Man (2020, JSP Records).

(Edited from Wikipedia)