Jerry Marlon Beach (December 11, 1941 – January 10, 2016) was an American blues musician. His father was stationed with the U.S. Army Air Corps in
Oklahoma City. He spent his first two years of high school in London where he learned how to play guitar before he and his family settled in
Bossier City, Louisiana
Bossier City ( ) is a city in Bossier Parish in the northwestern region of the U.S. state of Louisiana in the United States. It is the second most populous city in the Shreveport–Bossier City metropolitan statistical area. In 2020, it had a ...
.
Beach graduated from Bossier High School in 1960, and briefly attended
Northwestern State University, but by then he was sitting in with local bands playing guitar and singing. By the mid-1960s, he and Danny Harrelson were headlining local clubs as "Danny and Jerry". He was a favorite on regional music scenes for 56 years in several bands such as: "Jerry Beach Band" or "Robin and the Bluebirds".
He was inducted to the Louisiana Hall of Fame in 1998, but his international fame resulted from his songwriting. In 1972, the late
Albert King recorded Beach's "
I'll Play the Blues for You
''I'll Play the Blues for You'' is the seventh studio album by Albert King released in 1972.
In 2017, the single version of the title track was inducted in to the Blues Hall of Fame.
Track listing
#"I'll Play the Blues for You, Pts. 1-2" (Jerr ...
", which became a No. 1
US ''
Billboard
A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...
''
R&B chart
A chart (sometimes known as a graph) is a graphical representation for data visualization, in which "the data is represented by symbols, such as bars in a bar chart, lines in a line chart, or slices in a pie chart". A chart can represent tabu ...
hit and has been covered by many artists.
He also was nominated for a
Grammy Award for the song.
He was preceded in death by his parents, his two brothers, and his mother in law. He is survived by his daughter Robin and his son Jeff, his grandchildren, his former wife, all of Shreveport; and brother Randal Beach from
Dallas,
Texas, and David Beach of
Washington, D.C.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Beach, Jerry
1941 births
2016 deaths
American male songwriters