PHOTOS OF EDDY CLEARWATER BY KURT SWANSON
E-MAIL: kurtswanson@juno.com
Eddy Clearwater's Reservation Blues Chicago (1) 03/27/2004 (2) 02/2002
Eddy Clearwater:
Clearwater, whose real name is Eddie Harrington, grew up listening to Delta blues and Country & Western records in Macon, Missisippi, where he was born in 1935. At age thirteen he moved to Birmingham, Alabama, and started playing guitar in church. He was still playing gospel music when he arrived on Chicago's South Side. But by 1953, having come from a family with a rich blues background (he's related to Carey Bell, Lurie Bell, and Lovey Lee) Eddy had made his move into blues. Performing as Guitar Eddy, he and his band worked the South and West Side taverns. And when he would finish his shift as a cab driver, he would spend hours in clubs listening to Otis Rush, Magic Sam, B.B. King, and Muddy Waters (Clearwater's stage name was later given to him by a booking agent as a word play on the name of Chicago's king of the blues.) ~bluesmans.de