Eddie Burks is one of these travelers with that optimistic spirit. Perhaps less know than some of his contemporaries but still the "real deal" (in the words of photographer Tom Asp). This was traditional Chicago blues harmonica blown by one of the veterans of the Chicago scene. He opened the 9:30 PM show with a "good afternoon ladies and gentlemen," that brought a few chuckles from the audience and set the tone for a fun evening of down home and back alley Chicago blues. He also had his bags and suit case right up there on stage - packed and ready to hit the road again after another one night stand.

Eddie Burks The Blues Saloon, 3/28/98 Photo © 1998 by Ray Stiles All rights reserved

Eddie likes to move around a lot and was out in the audience just about every other song playing to the crowd. Sometimes he would even be singing without a microphone just like when he was growing up in rural Mississippi singing out in the fields. He pulled out his chromatic harp later in the show, playing with a rich, full sound. Eddie was backed by guitar and a solid rhythm section that really kept this 12 bar blues groove going all night long. He played a very nice harp solo on the introduction of the Jimmy Reed song "Big Boss Man," and started the second set blowing his harp while sitting out in the audience (he was actually sitting on Tom Asp's jacket at the time).

Eddie Burks The Blues Saloon, 3/28/98 Photo © 1998 by Tom Asp. All rights reserved.

He said his first influence on the harmonica was Sonny Boy Williamson #1. "His name was called John Lee, I used to listen to him play on a radio program out of Helena, Arkansas called King Biscuit. That was a long, many years back. I was in Mississippi, I was little boy then. He kind of influenced me. But I always wanted to blow my own style, it's very hard to create a style of music."

Eddie Burks was born in Greenwood Mississippi, September 17, 1931 on a plantation called Rising Sun. He was the youngest of 13 children in a poor sharecropping family. When asked how long he has been playing the harmonica Burks said "I have been playing the harmonica all my life. Ever since I can remember, 'cause my dad used to buy me a harmonica every year for Christmas." I jokingly asked if he got them in a different key each year and he said "No, he bought me the same harmonica EVERY year. He bought me a C harmonica. That's why I very seldom play in that key, because it was the only key I played in up until I got to be a great big boy and I was able to buy them myself."

Burks moved to Chicago in 1946 and tried to hang out where the musicians were playing the harmonica but was too young most of the time. "I was so little they wouldn't let me in the places. I went to a place where John Lee (Williamson) was playing on 31st and Indiana. This cat let me sit down and I bought a half pint of Sunny Brook and you pay 50 cents for a set up.

Eddie Burks Photo © 1998 by Ray Stiles All rights reserved

By the time I got ready to take a drink out of it, this guy picks me up and throws me out of the joint. I was only about 16 and a half, three months before I be 17. That was in '47 and that's what happened there. Another time I went over to (see) Muddy Waters. Him and Little Walter, they was playin' over on Chicago Ave. at a place. Jimmy Rogers was with him at that time. I got a chance to sit in with Muddy then when I was just a little boy. HE didn't let them throw me out."

Eddie learned to sing gospel during the 1950's. He belonged to the same church as Sam Cooke and Mahalia Jackson, The Greater Harvest Baptist Church on South State Street. It was under the tutelage of Robert Anderson & Willie Webb (the same men who tutored Sam Cooke) that he learned how to really sing and develop his voice.

Eddie Burks Photo © 1998 by Ray Stiles All rights reserved

He learned how "to get on the bandstand for three shows, three hours a night. They trained you how to go all night in high gear, not all night in low gear."

Eddie worked in the steel mills while he raised his family and spent many years as a sideman for Jimmy Dawkins and Eddie Shaw. He raised his family and eventually quit the steel mill to pursue music full time. In 1990, he established his own band and recorded the first of 3 self produced CDs. The "Vampire Woman" hit the Living Blues charts at #15 in 1991. "This Old Road" (1992) stayed on the charts for several months, peaking at #2. And "Comin' Home" (1994) reached #11 on the Living Blues charts.

I asked him about Jimmie Lee Robinson, a Chicago guitar and bass player who played with Elmore James and Little Walter in the 1950's (see review in July 1997 TCBN). Eddie said "Jimmie Lee is a smart guitar player. Don't let nobody tell you he don't know HOW to play with a harp blower. He played with Little Walter when he was nothin' but a kid. I remember when Little Walter was teaching him. Little Walter used to hang out at the park down on Roosevelt Road & Sacramento. That was his park that he hung out at all day long, and he was teachin' his musicians how to play behind a harp blower. They didn't have bass then, like they do now. Musicians didn't have the money they got now. So they used to take a guitar and tune it down. They used to tune a guitar a different way to play with a harp blower not like what they do now. So that's why a harp blower now days (has) a little trouble because the guitar player doesn't know how to really play with him."

Eddie Burks The Blues Saloon, 3/28/98 Photo © 1998 by Tom Asp. All rights reserved.

An interesting event occurred a few years ago when the National Geographic Explorer series was filming a show called Blues Highway. The whole focus of the movie changed after they were doing a segment on Eddie in his home. It was during the filming of this segment that for the first time Eddie talked about his brother who was killed by the Klan in 1937 when Eddie was just a little boy. He talked about how his mother and sisters had to literally wipe the pieces of his brother off the walls of his house after the brutal attack. In that instant their nice little film about the blues turned into something else. Eddie became the featured artist and the film was later nominated for an academy award in 1995.

After the show Eddie Burks was back on his own "blues highway" heading to another show in another town, just trying to keep that spirit alive.

To order the Eddie Burks' CD's visit his web page at: http://members.aol.com/rsgsonblue

Or E-mail: Rsgsonblue@aol.com

E-mail Ray Stiles at: mnblues@aol.com

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Copyright © 1998 by Ray M. Stiles
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