The Blue Shoe Release: Henry

photo: Anne Dyson / The Blue Shoe Project

Dallas – 96 Year-old blues legend Henry Townsend joined the ultimate all-star blues band in the sky on Sunday, September 24th near Grafton, Wi. The legend was honored as one of forty-four “stars” of the Paramount recording company to be immortalized in a Paramount “walk of fame”. Henry was one of only five artists still living that represent the last remaining link to the beginning of blues as a genre. Amazingly, those that remain, like Henry, are still on the road performing. they include Homesick James - 96, Joe Willie “Pinetop” Perkins - 93, Robert Lockwood, jr. - 91, and David “Honeyboy” Edwards - 91.

Henry had many accolades to his credit. he was the only American to record in every decade since the 1920’s. his last recording, “The Last of the Great Mississippi Delta Bluesmen – Live in Dallas” was made in 2004 where he is featured with his friends Robert Lockwood, Jr., Honeyboy Edwards and Pinetop Perkins. He was a recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Heritage Fellowship award, the highest honor our country bestows on a performer in the traditional arts and stood as a beacon of the St. Louis style of blues that earned him the title “The Dean of St. Louis Blues”.

After leaving Mississippi at the age of nine, Henry settled in and around St. Louis and began to emulate the styles of his childhood idol Lonnie Johnson, his friend and mentor piano player Roosevelt Sykes and boyhood friend and musician David Perchfield who taught him how to play the guitar. As a result, the understudy of these legendary artists was fluent in guitar and piano and could switch between the two at will.


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