William "Hambone Willie" Newbern (probably 1901 – April 15, 1965)
was an American
guitar
The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...
-playing
country blues
Country blues (also folk blues, rural blues, backwoods blues, or downhome blues) is one of the earliest forms of blues music. The mainly solo vocal with acoustic fingerstyle guitar accompaniment developed in the rural Southern United States in t ...
musician
A musician is a person who composes, conducts, or performs music. According to the United States Employment Service, "musician" is a general term used to designate one who follows music as a profession. Musicians include songwriters who wri ...
.
Life and career
Few details are known of his life. He is believed to have been born in
Haywood County, Tennessee
Haywood County is a County (United States), county located in the U.S. state of Tennessee, in the region known as West Tennessee. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, the population was 17,864. Its county seat and largest city is B ...
,
close to
Brownsville along
Tennessee State Route 19
State Route 19 (SR 19) or the Tina Turner Highway is a state highway in Haywood and Lauderdale counties in Tennessee, United States.http://www.tdot.state.tn.us/Maps/county/co49.pdf Lauderdale County, TN Highway Maphttp://www.tdot.state.tn.us/Map ...
. He was reported to have played with
Yank Rachell
Yank Rachell (born James A. Rachel; March 16, 1903 or 1910 – April 9, 1997) was an American country blues musician who has been called an "elder statesman of the blues". His career as a performer spanned nearly seventy years, from the late 192 ...
and
Sleepy John Estes
John Adam Estes (January 25, 1899 or 1900June 5, 1977),
(from whom most of our knowledge of Hambone was gained) in the 1920s and 1930s.
He recorded one of the earliest known versions of the blues standard "
Rollin' and Tumblin'
"Rollin' and Tumblin'" (or "Roll and Tumble Blues") is a blues standard first recorded by American singer-guitarist Hambone Willie Newbern in 1929. Called a "great Delta blues classic", it has been interpreted by hundreds of Delta and Chicago b ...
", which was waxed in
Atlanta, Georgia
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 ...
in 1929.
He only recorded six tracks in total, which also included, "She Could Toodle-Oo" and "Hambone Willie's Dreamy-Eyed Woman's Blues."
Newbern was reputedly a hot-tempered man, but reports that he was beaten to death in a prison brawl, around 1947,
are disputed by researchers Bob Eagle and Eric LeBlanc who assert that he died at home in
Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the seat of Shelby County in the southwest part of the state; it is situated along the Mississippi River. With a population of 633,104 at the 2020 U.S. census, Memphis is the second-mos ...
, in 1965.
References
External links
Illustrated Hambone Willie Newbern discography
1965 deaths
African-American guitarists
American blues guitarists
American male guitarists
American blues singers
Country blues musicians
Deaths by beating in the United States
20th-century American guitarists
People from Haywood County, Tennessee
People from Memphis, Tennessee
20th-century African-American male singers
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