Eddy Clearwater
Encyclopedia
Eddy "The Chief" Clearwater is the stage name
of Edward Harrington (born January 10, 1935),) an American
Chicago blues
musician. Blues Revue said Eddy plays “joyous rave-ups…he testifies with stunning soul fervor and powerful guitar. One of the blues’ finest songwriters.”
, Mississippi
, on January 10, 1935. His family moved to Birmingham
, Alabama
in 1948. He taught himself to play guitar at an early age (left-handed and upside down) and began performing with various gospel groups, including the Five Blind Boys Of Alabama.
scene since the 1950s. He performs both within the U.S.
(especially around the Chicago
, Illinois
area, where he resides) and internationally, such as at blues festivals in France
, Germany
, Denmark
, Poland
and the Netherlands
. His sound has been described as “hard-driving Windy City blues, soul-tinged balladry, acoustic country blues and gospel uplift….good natured fretboard fireworks.”
When he left the South for Chicago in 1950, he worked as a dishwasher while living with an uncle. Through his uncle he met many of Chicago’s blues masters, including fellow left-handed guitarist Otis Rush
and Magic Sam
. Once he heard the music of Chuck Berry
, he began performing some of Berry’s material as well as writing in a Berry-influenced style. He still regularly performs songs by Rush, Magic Sam and Berry as well as his own original material. In 1953, now known as Guitar Eddy, he began working regularly in Chicago’s south and west side bars. His first single, the Chuck Berry-styled “Hill Billy Blues”, was recorded in 1958 for his uncle’s Atomic H label, under the moniker Clear Waters, a name given to him by his manager Jump Jackson as wordplay on the more famous Muddy Waters
.
He recorded a few more singles and began receiving local radio airplay. Eventually the name Clear Waters morphed into Eddy Clearwater. He worked steadily throughout the '60s and '70s, and he was among the first blues musicians to find success with Chicago’s north side college crowd. He toured Europe twice during the 1970s and appeared on BBC
Television. Clearwater has been nickname
d The Chief and sometimes wears Native American
headdress
.
The release of his 1980 album The Chief under the Rooster Blues label announced that Clearwater's ascendancy to Chicago blues stardom was officially underway. Two encores for Rooster Blues, Help Yourself (1992) and Mean Case of the Blues (1996), cemented Clearwater's reputation. He became known as a masterful blues showman whose principal goal is to provide his fans with a real good time. Cool Blues Walk followed in 1998, followed by Chicago Daily Blues the next year, with Reservation Blues released in mid 2000.
In 2004, he was nominated for a Grammy Award
with Los Straitjackets
for their collaboration, Rock 'N' Roll City.
Vintage Guitar described his 2008 Alligator Records
album, West Side Strut as “great blues. Eddy’s fat, voluptuous tone shows a masterful command of the guitar. It’s hard to believe he can reach such heights in a recording studio. One listen and you’ll wonder why Clearwater’s name isn’t respectfully spoken in the same breath as Freddie King and Otis Rush.”
, Renee Greenman. Together they once owned 'Reservation Blues', a Wicker Park (Chicago) blues bar and restaurant. It is no longer in operation.
He is the father of two children, Jason and Edgar Harrington. He has three stepchildren, as well as two grandchildren.
He is a cousin of blues harmonica player Carey Bell
.
On 8 January 1997, Clearwater underwent successful triple heart bypass surgery.
Stage name
A stage name, also called a showbiz name or screen name, is a pseudonym used by performers and entertainers such as actors, wrestlers, comedians, and musicians.-Motivation to use a stage name:...
of Edward Harrington (born January 10, 1935),) an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Chicago blues
Chicago blues
The Chicago blues is a form of blues music that developed in Chicago, Illinois, by taking the basic acoustic guitar and harmonica-based Delta blues, making the harmonica louder with a microphone and an instrument amplifier, and adding electrically amplified guitar, amplified bass guitar, drums,...
musician. Blues Revue said Eddy plays “joyous rave-ups…he testifies with stunning soul fervor and powerful guitar. One of the blues’ finest songwriters.”
Early life
He was born in MaconMacon, Mississippi
Macon is a city in Noxubee County, Mississippi, United States, along the Noxubee River. The population was 2,461 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Noxubee County.-History:...
, Mississippi
Mississippi
Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...
, on January 10, 1935. His family moved to Birmingham
Birmingham, Alabama
Birmingham is the largest city in Alabama. The city is the county seat of Jefferson County. According to the 2010 United States Census, Birmingham had a population of 212,237. The Birmingham-Hoover Metropolitan Area, in estimate by the U.S...
, Alabama
Alabama
Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...
in 1948. He taught himself to play guitar at an early age (left-handed and upside down) and began performing with various gospel groups, including the Five Blind Boys Of Alabama.
Career
Clearwater is best known for being part of the Chicago bluesChicago blues
The Chicago blues is a form of blues music that developed in Chicago, Illinois, by taking the basic acoustic guitar and harmonica-based Delta blues, making the harmonica louder with a microphone and an instrument amplifier, and adding electrically amplified guitar, amplified bass guitar, drums,...
scene since the 1950s. He performs both within the U.S.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
(especially around the Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
area, where he resides) and internationally, such as at blues festivals in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
, Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
and the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
. His sound has been described as “hard-driving Windy City blues, soul-tinged balladry, acoustic country blues and gospel uplift….good natured fretboard fireworks.”
When he left the South for Chicago in 1950, he worked as a dishwasher while living with an uncle. Through his uncle he met many of Chicago’s blues masters, including fellow left-handed guitarist Otis Rush
Otis Rush
Otis Rush is a blues musician, singer and guitarist. His distinctive guitar style features a slow burning sound and long bent notes...
and Magic Sam
Magic Sam
Samuel "Magic Sam" Gene Maghett was an American Chicago blues musician. Maghett was born in Grenada, Mississippi, United States, and learned to play the blues from listening to records by Muddy Waters and Little Walter...
. Once he heard the music of Chuck Berry
Chuck Berry
Charles Edward Anderson "Chuck" Berry is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter, and one of the pioneers of rock and roll music. With songs such as "Maybellene" , "Roll Over Beethoven" , "Rock and Roll Music" and "Johnny B...
, he began performing some of Berry’s material as well as writing in a Berry-influenced style. He still regularly performs songs by Rush, Magic Sam and Berry as well as his own original material. In 1953, now known as Guitar Eddy, he began working regularly in Chicago’s south and west side bars. His first single, the Chuck Berry-styled “Hill Billy Blues”, was recorded in 1958 for his uncle’s Atomic H label, under the moniker Clear Waters, a name given to him by his manager Jump Jackson as wordplay on the more famous Muddy Waters
Muddy Waters
McKinley Morganfield , known as Muddy Waters, was an American blues musician, generally considered the "father of modern Chicago blues"...
.
He recorded a few more singles and began receiving local radio airplay. Eventually the name Clear Waters morphed into Eddy Clearwater. He worked steadily throughout the '60s and '70s, and he was among the first blues musicians to find success with Chicago’s north side college crowd. He toured Europe twice during the 1970s and appeared on BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
Television. Clearwater has been nickname
Nickname
A nickname is "a usually familiar or humorous but sometimes pointed or cruel name given to a person or place, as a supposedly appropriate replacement for or addition to the proper name.", or a name similar in origin and pronunciation from the original name....
d The Chief and sometimes wears Native American
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
headdress
Headgear
Headgear, headwear or headdress is the name given to any element of clothing which is worn on one's head.Headgear serve a variety of purposes:...
.
The release of his 1980 album The Chief under the Rooster Blues label announced that Clearwater's ascendancy to Chicago blues stardom was officially underway. Two encores for Rooster Blues, Help Yourself (1992) and Mean Case of the Blues (1996), cemented Clearwater's reputation. He became known as a masterful blues showman whose principal goal is to provide his fans with a real good time. Cool Blues Walk followed in 1998, followed by Chicago Daily Blues the next year, with Reservation Blues released in mid 2000.
In 2004, he was nominated for a Grammy Award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
with Los Straitjackets
Los Straitjackets
Los Straitjackets is an American instrumental rock band that formed in Nashville, Tennessee in 1988. Originally comprising guitarists Danny Amis and Eddie Angel and drummer L. J. "Jimmy" Lester under the name The Straitjackets, the band split up soon after forming and reunited as Los Straitjackets...
for their collaboration, Rock 'N' Roll City.
Vintage Guitar described his 2008 Alligator Records
Alligator Records
Alligator Records is a Chicago-based independent blues record label founded by Bruce Iglauer in 1971.Iglauer started the label with his own savings to record and produce his favorite band Hound Dog Taylor & The HouseRockers, whom his employer, Bob Koester of Delmark Records, declined to record...
album, West Side Strut as “great blues. Eddy’s fat, voluptuous tone shows a masterful command of the guitar. It’s hard to believe he can reach such heights in a recording studio. One listen and you’ll wonder why Clearwater’s name isn’t respectfully spoken in the same breath as Freddie King and Otis Rush.”
Personal life
Clearwater is married to his managerTalent manager
A talent manager, also known as an artist manager or band manager, is an individual or company who guides the professional career of artists in the entertainment industry...
, Renee Greenman. Together they once owned 'Reservation Blues', a Wicker Park (Chicago) blues bar and restaurant. It is no longer in operation.
He is the father of two children, Jason and Edgar Harrington. He has three stepchildren, as well as two grandchildren.
He is a cousin of blues harmonica player Carey Bell
Carey Bell
Carey Bell was an American blues musician, who played the harmonica in the Chicago blues style. Bell played harmonica and bass for other blues musicians during the late 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s before embarking on a solo career...
.
On 8 January 1997, Clearwater underwent successful triple heart bypass surgery.
Discography
- 2008 West Side Strut (on Alligator RecordsAlligator RecordsAlligator Records is a Chicago-based independent blues record label founded by Bruce Iglauer in 1971.Iglauer started the label with his own savings to record and produce his favorite band Hound Dog Taylor & The HouseRockers, whom his employer, Bob Koester of Delmark Records, declined to record...
) - 2003 Rock ‘N’ Roll City (featuring Los StraitjacketsLos StraitjacketsLos Straitjackets is an American instrumental rock band that formed in Nashville, Tennessee in 1988. Originally comprising guitarists Danny Amis and Eddie Angel and drummer L. J. "Jimmy" Lester under the name The Straitjackets, the band split up soon after forming and reunited as Los Straitjackets...
) - 2000 Reservation Blues
- 1999 Chicago Daily Blues
- 1998 Cool Blues Walk
- 1998 Chicago Blues Session, Vol. 23 (live)
- 1996 Mean Case Of The Blues
- 1995 Boogie My Blues Away
- 1992 Live At The Kingston Mines, 1978 (live)
- 1992 Help Yourself
- 1990 Real Good Time: Live! (live)
- 1989 Blues Hang Out
- 1986 Flimdoozie
- 1981 Two Times Nine
- 1980 The Chief
- 1979 Black Night
See also
- List of Chicago blues musicians
- List of Electric blues musicians
- Chicago Blues FestivalChicago Blues FestivalThe Chicago Blues Festival is an annual event held in June that features three days of performances by top-tier blues musicians, both old favorites and the up-and-coming. It is hosted by the City of Chicago Mayor's Office of Special Events, and always occurs in early June...
- San Francisco Blues FestivalSan Francisco Blues FestivalDebuting in 1973, the San Francisco Blues Festival is the longest running blues festival in the United States. Tom Mazzolini, the event's producer, founded the blues festival to educate the public about the history and evolution of the blues...