A Beautiful Day

photo by: The Blue Shoe Project

Everything was as "The Mule" would have wanted it to be. As Henry was laid to rest, the day was one of a new beginning, the start of a new chapter in The Blues. Check out the coverage below that the event received. Almost all of the St. Louis news stations came out to document the event. Please take a few moments to check out some of the coverage and video Henry received.

More videos and pictures will be posted soon so please stay tuned...

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Music legend Henry Townsend laid to rest

05:56 PM CDT on Monday, October 2, 2006

Watch News 4 coverage

St. Louis said good-bye to a musical legend today. Henry Townsend died last week at the age of 96.

Townsend died in Grafton, Wisconsin, where he was being honored as the last surviving artist with Paramount Records.

The Grafton Blues Association brought a plaque honoring him to his hospital room before he died. Henry Townsend was the first blues artist to record music in nine consecutive decades. He recorded his first album in 1929, composing hundreds of songs throughout his career.

But Townsend only had a third grade education, and couldn't read music. He grew up on an Illinois cotton plantation, ran away at nine and caught a freight train to St. Louis, where he worked in the red light district. Later on, he lived in the same brick bungalow he shared for 40 years with his late wife, Vernell, who performed with him.

Townsend was buried alongside his wife today at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery.

Click here for Video Coverage

photo: St. Louis River-Front Times

R.I.P. Henry Townsend

1909-2006

By Malcolm Gay
Article Published Oct 4, 2006

Henry Townsend, the prolific blues artist often described as the "Patriarch of St. Louis Blues" and the recipient of a National Heritage Fellowship, died Sunday, September 24, in Grafton, Wisconsin. He was 96 years old.

The last surviving Paramount Records blues artist, Townsend had traveled to Wisconsin, where he was slated to perform as the showcase artist at the inaugural Paramount Blues Festival. Townsend's breathing became labored upon arrival, and he died two days later of pulmonary edema, a build-up of fluid in the lungs often caused by heart failure.

Known for his prodigious songwriting talents, Townsend had more than 350 published songs to his credit, including such blues standards as "Tears Come Rolling Down." But that figure hardly describes the bluesman's total body of work. Townsend recorded music in each of the past nine decades (his first recording was in 1929), and he accompanied musicians on countless other recordings.

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Family, fans remember Townsend's deep love for music
By Stephen Deere
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
10/03/2006

They didn't call him "Mule" for nothing.

This was the boy who fled his Mississippi home at age 9 and hopped on a train to East St. Louis, all to escape a whipping.

This was the man who burst onto the St. Louis blues scene in 1929, before many of the city's other blues greats.

And this was the legend who became the only blues artist to record in every decade since then, and perhaps the only artist to record from the 1920s into the new millennium.

More than a hundred people on Monday crammed into Mount Nebo Missionary Baptist Church in St. Louis at a funeral service to say goodbye to Henry "Mule" Townsend, who died Sept. 24 at 96 years old.

"What he shows us is that with determination and tenacity and with the help of God, you can do some monumental things in your life," said the Rev. Dwight Davis, pastor of the church.

Those who knew Townsend talked about his love for others, his musical genius and the stubbornness that earned him his nickname.

Townsend's son, Alonzo, 19, a budding blues rap artist, said he never learned how to play guitar or piano like his father but that, "I learned how to love my neighbor."

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Henry Townsend, 96; Blues Guitarist Went From Odd Jobs to Master Artist
From Times Staff and Wire Reports
September 29, 2006

Blues guitarist Henry "Mule" Townsend, who fled home for St. Louis as a boy and then stayed for a prolific career that spanned eight decades, has died. He was 96.

Townsend died Sunday of pulmonary edema in Grafton, Wis., said John May, chairman of the St. Louis Blues Society.

Townsend was being honored at a blues festival as the last surviving musician from the old Paramount Records, May said. The label recorded much of the blues material produced from 1929 to 1932, including "race records" by black artists for black audiences.

Townsend, who won a National Heritage Award in 1985 as a master artist, was born in Shelby, Miss., but grew up in Cairo, Ill. He was only 9 when he hopped a train for St. Louis to avoid a whipping from his father for pulling a prank on a cousin, he told the Associated Press in an interview in June.

To support himself, he did odd jobs, including shining shoes, selling whiskey and cleaning theaters.

He learned guitar and piano, and decided on a career in blues guitar after hearing budding bluesman Lonnie Johnson, considered the Jimi Hendrix of the 1920s, perform in the old Booker T. Washington Theater in St. Louis.

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