Lockwood, Robert, Jr.

▪ 2007

Robert Jr. Lockwood 

      American blues musician (b. March 27, 1915, Turkey Scratch, Ark.—d. Nov. 21, 2006, Cleveland, Ohio), was perhaps best known for his relationship with blues legend Robert Johnson, but he was an important guitarist, composer, and bandleader in his own right. Lockwood began to learn the piano as a child, but when Johnson began a relationship with young Lockwood's mother, he studied the guitar under Johnson's tutelage; he was the only person known to have taken lessons from the usually secretive Johnson. Lockwood toured several times with Johnson in Arkansas and the Mississippi Delta, playing for tips, until Johnson's murder in August 1938. In July 1941 Lockwood traveled to Chicago, where he made four Johnson-inspired sides for the RCA Bluebird label. Upon returning to the South, Lockwood and harmonica player Sonny Boy Williamson II began broadcasting from Arkansas on the popular radio program King Biscuit Time. When Lockwood became interested in a jazzier style of music, with horn-influenced guitar lines, he left King Biscuit Time for his own radio program. After a stint playing with a white band in the West, he returned to the South and worked with piano-player Bill (“Destruction”) Johnson, the young B.B. King, and others. In 1950 Lockwood followed the “great migration” to Chicago. He became a studio musician for Chess Records, where he accompanied Williamson, Marion (“Little Walter”) Jacobs, and Eddie Boyd. He also recorded under his own name on the Mercury label. In 1960 Williamson persuaded Lockwood to move to Cleveland, where he remained for the rest of his life. He was in demand at clubs and festivals, and he released a number of albums. Lockwood received two W.C. Handy blues awards, and in 1995 he was granted a national heritage fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.

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