We just got back last night from our annual Thanksgiving trip to St Thomas to visit our good friends Marty and Tiffany. Details will be up on the web site soon.
When I got home and logged into my email, I had an email from our friend Francis, saying that Robert Lockwood Jr. had died at the age of 91. Craig and I first became fans of Robert Lockwood Jr when we attended the 2001 W.C. Handy Blues Awards in Memphis with our friends Kevin and Jenn. Robert Lockwood Jr was seated directly behind us, and he was wearing a very styling suit. He received an award that night, and when he went onstage to receive it, he made a cantankerous comment to the effect that "It's about time." We could tell that he was quite a character. Then, two nights later, we saw him perform at the Blues Aid concert at the New Daisy Theater. He was 86 at the time. He played a short set on a beautiful turquoise guitar. A highlight was "Stop Breaking Down Blues." He left us wanting more.
When we got home from Memphis, we started to research him. He was the real deal, and had learned to play guitar from the man whose very name is synonymous with blues: Robert Johnson. In fact, Johnson was the boyfriend of Lockwood's mother, and lived with them for a while. We started to collect Lockwood's recordings, and our favorite ones always seemed to be when he played Johnson's material. It was magic. Pure old-school blues.
Lockwood lived in Cleveland, and had a weekly gig at a nightclub called Fat Fish Blue. We wished we could travel there to see him, but his regular night was Wednesday, so that made a long weekend trip impossible.
On June 3, 2006, Robert Lockwood Jr played with David Honeyboy Edwards at the Regatta Bar in Cambridge, MA. Craig and I went to the show with Craig's brother Steve and our friend and fellow blues afficianado, Francis. Each man played two sets, just him and a guitar. Again, Lockwood looked totally styling. He played the same turquoise guitar, and put on an absolutely fabulous show. We put some photos from the show up on our web site here. We got to meet him in between sets and get his autograph. I told him that our friend Frank would have loved to have met him, maybe even did meet him at some point. Frank was one of our best friends. He had been B.B. King's bus driver for 20 years, and we took him to see some blues concerts while he was in a local nursing home. Unfortunately, Frank passed away in August 2005. I am in the process of creating a tribute page to Frank on the web site.
Anyway, I am so happy that we got to see Robert Lockwood again before he passed away. According to newspaper articles, he was doing what he loved right up until the end. He had performed on Nov 1, suffered an aneurysm on Nov 3, and then remained in the hospital until he passed away on Nov 21. On his website, his widow, Mary, invites friends and fans to attend his wake and funeral in Cleveland. We wish that we weren't so far away, or we would pay our respect.
RIP, Mr. Lockwood!
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