Booker T. "Bukka" White Born: Circa 1906 - 09 Died: 1977

He was born Booker T. White in the early 1900s to a musical family.  His father was a part-time musician when he was not working on the railroad.  He played multiple instruments and taught "Bukka" to play the guitar beginning at age nine.  Along with his mother's love of hymns Bukka was influenced by local blues men such as Charley Patton.

In 1920 he moved to St. Louis to play full time after having been raised to work the fields.  While still a teenager he met and married Jesse Bea who died in 1928.  In 1930 Victor Records recorded him in a studio in Memphis.  He married again in 1934, but was constantly on the road.  He played when he could, but also engaged in professiona sports such as boxing and baseball (with the Birmingham Black Cats).

In 1937 Bukka White shot a man in Mississippi then went to Chicago to evade arrest.  White claimed self-defense, but he spent a little over two years in Parchman Penitentiary nonetheless.  In this period, from 1937 to 1940 he recorded for the Library of Congress.  One of the songs he recorded there was the classic "Shake 'em On Down" later covered by the North Mississippi All-Stars. 

When he was released from prison he did some recording for Vocalion in Chicago then relocated to Memphis two years later.  Inexplicably he obtained a legal separation from his second wife and she was left to raise the two children on her own.  After relocating in Memphis he rented a room to his first cousin, Riley King.  Later to be known as the Blues Boy or B. B. King.  B. B. would occasionally have Bukka on the radio after he gained his own show on WDIA.

His musical luck had run out in the late 40s into the early 60s and he returned to hard labor in Memphis to earn his living.  Like so many southern blues men he was ferreted out by the team of John Fahey and Ed Dawson as they swept the south creating a blues revival in the mid-60s.  His "revival" period was one of the most successful of any of the blues men.  Aside from the obligatory tours of Europe he was also invited to perform in the Mexico City Olympics.  He also did some spoken word recording in folklore classes at the University of Californa at Berkley.

In the mid-70s Bukka White's health deteriorated badly including a series of strokes.  He died in Memphis on February 26, 1977.