George Mitchell (born January 9, 1944) is an American record producer and music historian. Born in

Coral Gables, Florida Coral Gables, officially City of Coral Gables, is a city in Miami-Dade County, Florida. The city is located southwest of Downtown Miami. As of the 2020 U.S. census, it had a population of 49,248. Coral Gables is known globally as home to the ...

, United States, and raised in

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...

, from the 1960s until the 1980s, he recorded blues musicians such as

Jessie Mae Hemphill Jessie Mae Hemphill (October 18, 1923 – July 22, 2006) was an American electric guitarist, songwriter, and vocalist specializing in the North Mississippi hill country blues traditions of her family and regional heritage. Life and career Hemp ...

Fred McDowell Fred McDowell (January 12, 1904 – July 3, 1972), known by his stage name Mississippi Fred McDowell, was an American hill country blues singer and guitar player. Career McDowell was born in Rossville, Tennessee, United States. His parents were f ...

Johnny Woods Johnny Woods (November 1, 1917 – February 1, 1990) was an American blues singer and harmonica player in the north Mississippi hill country blues style. Woods was born in Looxahoma, Mississippi, a small town just west of Mississippi Highway ...

, George Henry Bussey and Jim Bunkley, Charlie Burse and

Will Shade William Shade Jr. (February 5, 1898 – September 18, 1966), known as Will Shade, was a Memphis blues musician, best known for his leadership of the Memphis Jug Band. He was commonly called Son Brimmer, a nickname from his grandmother Annie Brim ...

Gus Cannon Gustavus "Gus" Cannon (September 12, 1883 or 1884 – October 15, 1979) was an American blues musician who helped to popularize jug bands (such as his own Cannon's Jug Stompers) in the 1920s and 1930s. There is uncertainty about his birth year; ...

Mississippi Joe Callicott "Mississippi" Joe Callicott (October 10, 1899 – May 1969) was an American Delta blues singer and guitarist. Callicott was born in Nesbit, Mississippi, United States. In 1929 he played second guitar in Garfield Akers' duet recording, " ...

, John Lee Ziegler, Jimmy Lee Williams,

Furry Lewis Walter E. "Furry" Lewis (March 6, 1893 or 1899 – September 14, 1981) was an American country blues guitarist and songwriter from Memphis, Tennessee. He was one of the first of the blues musicians active in the 1920s to be brought out of retirem ...

Houston Stackhouse Houston Stackhouse (September 28, 1910 – September 23, 1980) was an American Delta blues guitarist and singer. He is best known for his association with Robert Nighthawk. He was not especially noted as a guitarist or singer, but Nighthawk ...

, R. L. Burnside and

Sleepy John Estes John Adam Estes (January 25, 1899 or 1900June 5, 1977),
known as Sleepy John Estes, was an Am ...

, later to be issued on

Arhoolie Records Arhoolie Records is an American small independent record label run by Chris Strachwitz and is based in El Cerrito, California, United States (it is actually located in Richmond Annex but has an El Cerrito postal address.) The label was founded b ...

(late 1960s), Revival Records (1971) and

Rounder Records Rounder Records is an independent record label founded in 1970 in Somerville, Massachusetts by Marian Leighton Levy, Ken Irwin, and Bill Nowlin. Focused on American roots music, Rounder's catalogue of more than 3000 titles includes records by Al ...

(from c. 1975) as 33 rpm albums, and then on Arhoolie (2000) and

Fat Possum Records Fat Possum Records is an American independent record label based in Water Valley and Oxford, Mississippi. At first Fat Possum focused almost entirely on recording previously unknown Mississippi blues artists (typically from Oxford or Holly Sprin ...

(2003 ff.) as CDs. George Mitchell also plays the blues himself on an oil-can bass. Author of the following books. • Blow My Blues Away (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1971) • I'm Somebody Important: Young Black Voices from Rural Georgia (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1973) • Yessir, I've Been Here a Long Time: The Faces and Words of Americans Who Have Lived a Century (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1975) • In Celebration of a Legacy (Columbus: Columbus Museum of Art, 1981) • Southern Portraits (Bear Creek, AL: Bear Creek Books, 1981) • Ponce de Leon: An Intimate Portrait of Atlanta's Most Famous Avenue (Atlanta: Argonne Books, 1982) • Sweet Auburn ith my photography students at Grady High School(Atlanta: Argonne Books, 1996) • Mississippi Hill Country Blues 1967 (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2013) • Ronda: An Intimate Portrait of a Southern Street Prostitute (ebook, Argonne Books, 2015)

References

External links

George Mitchell biography

2008 interview
by Jeff Harris of

WXPN WXPN (88.5 FM) is a non-commercial, public radio station licensed to The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, that broadcasts an adult album alternative (AAA) radio format, along with many other format shows ...

radio {{DEFAULTSORT:Mitchell, George 1944 births Living people Record producers from Florida American folk-song collectors American folklorists Blues historians American music historians Writers from Coral Gables, Florida 21st-century American historians 21st-century American male writers 20th-century American historians American male non-fiction writers Historians from Florida 20th-century American male writers