(which I highly recommend purchasing),
I was struck by his rock'n'roll vocals.
He basically raps over a fairly repetitive
track, and the lyrics are pretty familiar. He
sings about "standing on the corner...
having a conversation with a little girl".
His singing is nasal, more high pitched than
most of his contemporaries. Not the deep
voice of other singers like Muddy or Wolf.
Willie's voice is more urban, ready
for business. "...sho 'nuff"
Willie's history is fairly minimal, as he
never recorded enough
for a whole album, but at some point he
recorded a few tracks for Sun
Records, which makes me wonder if some
rock'n'roll dudes might
have heard him back in the day, and thought,
"hmmm....this is interesting".
From what I've put together, Willie Nix
was born August 6, 1922 in Memphis.
He started out as a tap dancer
at a fairly young age, moved up to some
kind of a dancing comedian in a
traveling group. As a musician, he was
a drummer, and singer. His recordings
appeared on Checker Records, and he was
the "Memphis Blues Boy" for Sun.
was recorded on Oct 14th,
1953 were Eddy Taylor on guitar,
Sunnyland Slim on piano, Snooky Pryor on
harmonica, and Willie playing drums.
I think the background in tap,
obviously gave him
a great sense of rhythm vocally,
as well as the comedic timing.
This track is definately worth checking out,
as I think you'll hear alot of current
singers in Willie.
The site for Clemson had the great shots of the Chance and
Sabre labels, as well as tons of
artist info. The shot of Willie Nix came from Last FM.
