Wells, Junior

▪ 1999

      American blues singer and harmonica player (b. Dec. 9, 1934, Memphis, Tenn.—d. Jan. 15, 1998, Chicago, Ill.), was one of the musicians who introduced electric Chicago blues to international audiences and, from 1965, was one of the most popular of all blues performers. The son of an Arkansas sharecropper, Wells moved in 1946 with his mother to Chicago. There, in a pawnshop, he spied a harmonica priced at $2.00, left $1.50 on the store counter, and took the harmonica; arrested for theft, he played the instrument for a judge, who gave the store owner 50 cents and announced, "Case dismissed." At age 18 Wells joined the city's finest blues band, fronted by Muddy Waters, and led his own first recording session. Wells went on to success as a Chicago entertainer, had an early 1960s hit record "Messin' with the Kid," and was in the midst of an extended engagement at the Chicago nightclub Theresa's when in 1965 he recorded one of the first Chicago blues albums, the popular Hoodoo Man Blues, accompanied by guitarist Buddy Guy. The next year the Wells-Guy team first toured Europe; as white blues audiences grew larger, the pair made numerous recordings and played in many concert tours in the 1960s and '70s, including as the opening act for the Rolling Stones. Wells was noted for his elegant attire and his grand, energetic manner, both in his many performances with Guy and with the bands he led on his own. He selected his repertoire from senior bluesmen, including harmonica players Junior Parker and the first Sonny Boy (John Lee) Williamson, who had influenced him; both his singing and playing were uniquely dramatic and intense and punctuated with shouts, sexual moans, and humorous asides. His 1996 album, Come On in This House, won a W.C. Handy Blues Award. Before his final illness from cancer he appeared in the movie Blues Brothers 2000; days before his death his 1997 album, Live at Buddy Guy's Legends, was nominated for a Grammy award.

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