Home » Jazz Musicians » Willie King

Willie King

Willie King an Alabama blues singer and guitarist whose career took him from backwoods juke joints to the largest blues festivals in North America and Europe.

King appeared in the 2003 Martin Scorsese film Feel Like Going Home and was named Blues Artist of the Year by Living Blues magazine in 2004. In 1997 he founded the Freedom Creek blues festival. He began recording in 1999 when he made Freedom Creek, the first of his acclaimed albums.

King was one of those old-school juke joint players, but his music also reflected his lifelong role as a social activist. He called them 'struggling blues,'
Brett Bonner Magazine editor

King often visited schools, telling his life story and teaching children about the blues music that he loved.

King was born in Prairie Point, Miss., but when he was 6 years old he moved to west Alabama with his sharecropping grandparents. At age 9, he started playing guitar -- a fascination that took him to Southern juke joints for years before he gained international recognition late in his career.

An award-nominated record of Willie's life has been published.
Dutch film-makers Saskia Rietmeijer and Bart Drolenga (Visible World Films) wanted to produce a documentary about African American arts and culture in the Deep South. But they met Willie King and instead decided to devote their efforts to creating a DVD about Willie's life and times.

Willie King's debut album Freedom Creek on Rooster Blues Records, was King's powerful introduction into the wider music and blues world. Not only was the album acclaimed by critics worldwide, it also received awards from Living Blues Magazine for Best Male Blues Artist (2001), Best Blues Album (2000) and Best Contemporary Blues Album (2000).

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 Sides, 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.

In 1987, a chance meeting at a festival in Eutaw, Alabama, blew Rooster Blues founder Jim O'Neal away: According to O'Neal, King's "juke-joint musical style and political lyrics knocked me down." The two kept in touch for the next 13 years, during which O'Neal relocated his label, and King concentrated on his own community, forging relationships with local youth through a blues education program, through his organization The Rural Members Association.

Read more

Tags

213
Album Review

Willie King and the Liberators: Living in a New World

Read "Living in a New World" reviewed by Charlie B. Dahan


Willie King follows his critically acclaimed album “Freedom Creek,” with an equally masterful recording of conscious blues that while highly entertaining, packs the punch of a Bob Marley song. On “Living in a New World,” King turns his insightful observation from statements on social injustice and prejudice to thoughts of redemption and optimism that despite everything going on around him, hope lies in the future. King has mastered the bridge between conveying a meaningful message to the ...

Read more articles
264

Obituary

Willie King Alabama Blues Singer, Guitarist

Willie King Alabama Blues Singer, Guitarist

Source: Michael Ricci

Willie King, 65, an Alabama blues singer and guitarist whose career took him from backwoods juke joints to the largest blues festivals in North America and Europe, died Sunday in Alabama.

King had a heart attack at his home in the Old Memphis community of Pickens County near the Mississippi line, said band member Debbie Bond. She said he died on the way to the hospital.

King appeared in the 2003 Martin Scorsese film “Feel Like Going Home" and was ...

137

Event

Willie King Partners with the Alabama Blues Project

Willie King Partners with the Alabama Blues Project

Source: All About Jazz

The Alabama Blues Project (ABP) is partering with internationally renowned bluesman Willie King to present a six-week long Blues in the Schools Artist Residency at Aliceville Middle School in Pickens County, Alabama. Pickens County native Willie King has twice won the Living Blues Magazine “Blues Artist of the Year" award and is the recipient of an Alabama State Council on the Arts (ASCA) Fellowsip award. His annual Freedom Creek Festival, held at his home in Old Memphis, Pickens County, on ...

Music

Similar

Son House
guitar, slide
Freddie King
guitar, electric
Elmore James
guitar, slide
Otis Rush
guitar, electric
Lonnie Brooks
guitar, electric
Sean Costello
guitar, electric
Son Seals
guitar, electric
Tommy Castro
guitar, electric
North Mississippi Allstars
band / ensemble / orchestra

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.