L. C. "Good Rockin'" Robinson (born Louis Charles Robinson; May 13, 1914 – September 26, 1976)Larkin, Colin. ''The Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music'', p. 3528, (1995), . was an American

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

singer, guitarist, and

fiddle A fiddle is a bowed string musical instrument, most often a violin. It is a colloquial term for the violin, used by players in all genres, including classical music. Although in many cases violins and fiddles are essentially synonymous, th ...

player. He played an electric

steel guitar A steel guitar ( haw, kīkākila) is any guitar played while moving a steel bar or similar hard object against plucked strings. The bar itself is called a "steel" and is the source of the name "steel guitar". The instrument differs from a conve ...

Biography

Robinson was born in

Brenham Brenham ( ) is a city in east-central Texas in Washington County, United States, with a population of 17,369 according to the 2020 U.S. census. It is the county seat of Washington County. Washington County is known as the "Birthplace of Texas, ...

, Texas, United States. He learned to play guitar at nine years of age, and was supposedly mentored by

gospel blues Gospel blues (or holy blues) is a form of blues-based gospel music that has been around since the inception of blues music. It combines evangelistic lyrics with blues instrumentation, often blues guitar accompaniment. According to musician and ...

singer-guitarist

Blind Willie Johnson Blind Willie Johnson (January 25, 1897 – September 18, 1945) was an American gospel blues singer, guitarist and evangelist. His landmark recordings completed between 1927 and 1930—thirty songs in total—display a combination of powerful "ch ...

in the bottleneck style. Later in his career, he was introduced to the

Western swing Western swing music is a subgenre of American country music that originated in the late 1920s in the Western United States, West and Southern United States, South among the region's Western music (North America), Western string bands. It is dan ...

musician

Leon McAuliffe William Leon McAuliffe (January 3, 1917 – August 20, 1988) was an American Western swing guitarist who was a member of Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys during the 1930s. He was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a me ...

, and became a noted

player, who instructed Sugarcane Harris. L. C. Robinson's brother, harmonica player A. C. Robinson, collaborated with him in Texas in the 1930s, and later the two performed and recorded together in a band in California in the 1940s. ''Oakland Blues,'' a studio album Robinson,

Lafayette Thomas Lafayette Jerl Thomas (June 13, 1928 – May 20, 1977)Harris, S. (1981). Blues Who's Who. New York: Da Capo Press, pp. 509–510, was an American blues singer, and guitarist. Early life Thomas was born on June 13, 1928 in Shreveport, Louisiana ...

and Dave Alexander, was released in 1968 by

World Pacific Records Pacific Jazz Records was a Los Angeles-based record company and label best known for cool jazz or West coast jazz West Coast jazz refers to styles of jazz that developed in Los Angeles and San Francisco during the 1950s. West Coast jazz is o ...

. This was followed in 1971 by the album ''Ups and Downs'' on Arhoolie, on which Robinson was accompanied by the

Muddy Waters McKinley Morganfield (April 4, 1913 April 30, 1983), known professionally as Muddy Waters, was an American blues singer and musician who was an important figure in the post-war blues scene, and is often cited as the "father of modern Chicago b ...

band and Dave Alexander's trio. This material was later reissued, along with a previously unissued recording of a radio broadcast with his brother the Reverend A. C. Robinson, as ''Mojo in My Hand''. Robinson played at the

San Francisco Blues Festival The San Francisco Blues Festival was active from 1973 until 2008, and was located in San Francisco, California. It was the one of the longest running blues festival in the United States. History Tom Mazzolini, the event's producer, founded the ...

in both 1973 and 1974. He visited Sweden the following year, but his work was never widely known in Europe. He died of a heart attack in

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emer ...

in 1976, aged 61.

Selected discography

References

External links

Illustrated L.C. Robinson discography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Robinson, L.C. 1914 births 1976 deaths People from Brenham, Texas American blues singers American blues guitarists American male guitarists West Coast blues musicians 20th-century American guitarists 20th-century American singers 20th-century American male musicians