JIMMY ROGERS

Jimmy Rogers was born James A. Lane in Ruleville, Mississippi, on June 3, 1924, and was raised in Atlanta, Georgia and Memphis, Tennessee He adapted the professional surname 'Rogers' from his stepfather's last name. Rogers learned the harmonica alongside his childhood friend Snooky Pryor, and as a teenager took up the guitar and played professionally in East St. Louis, Illinois (where he played with Robert Lockwood, Jr., among others), before moving to Chicago in the mid 1940s.^{[citation needed]} By 1946 he had recorded his first record as a harmonica player and singer for the local Harlem record label (run by J. Mayo Williams, this was not to be confused with the New York based label of the same name). Rogers' name did not appear on the record, which was mislabeled as the work of "Memphis Slim and his Houserockers."

Rogers joined Muddy Waters the next year, with whom he helped shape the sound of the nascent Chicago Blues style. Although he had several successful releases of his own on Chess Records beginning in 1950 with "That's Alright", he stayed with Waters until leaving his band for a solo career in 1954. In the mid 1950s he enjoyed several successful record releases on the Chess label, most notably "Walking By Myself", but as the 1950s drew to a close and interest in the blues waned, he gradually withdrew from the music industry.In the early 1960s he worked as a member of Howling Wolf's band, before finally withdrawing from the music business altogether for almost a decade. He worked as a taxicab driver and owned a clothing store that burned down in the Chicago riots that followed the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968. He gradually began performing in public again, and in 1971 when fashions made him a reasonable draw in Europe, Rogers began occasionally touring and recording, including a 1977 reunion session with his old bandleader Waters. By 1982, Rogers was again a full-time solo artist.

In 1995 Rogers was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame.^[3]

Añadimos a la info sacada de la "Wiki"., que merece mucho la pena disfrutar del último album,BLUES, BLUES BLUES, que grabó Jimmy Rogers y el cual no pudo ver terminado a causa de su muerte poco antes, en él el que fuera guitarrista de Muddy Waters., se rodea de grandes artistas de blues mas jovenes que él como Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page Robert Plant, etc.
Artista modesto donde los haya, precisamente a causa de su modestia y discreción, quizó no fuera reconocido todo lo que debiera en su momento, no olvidemos que fue uno de los pioneros del Blues de Chicago. Al dejar la banda de Muddy Waters, tuvo que pasar por varias vicisitudes para mantener a su familia, llegando a trabajar de taxista. ( como hemos podido leer mas arriba) En 1970 volvió a los escenarios y grabó varios discos participando asimismo en varias giras por Europa, a pesar de ser fiel a un repertorio casi invariable, no cabe duda de que nos hallamos ante un Bluesman de reconocido prestigio.Mandonguilla Blues.