[Slowhand] Henry Townsend was the last remaining link to St. Louis blues' earliest days.

[An English Boy]

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St. Louis blues ace held last link to the blues' earliest days

By Kevin C. Johnson

09/26/2006

Henry Townsend

Henry "Mule" Townsend, patriarch of St. Louis blues music, was the last 
remaining link to St. Louis blues' earliest days.

Townsend, 96, was the only blues artist to record in every decade of blues 
recordings, and possibly the only artist in general to record from the 1920s 
to the current decade.

The renowned singer, guitarist and pianist died Sunday night of pulmonary 
edema in Grafton, Wis., where he was being honored at a blues festival.

Townsend began making his mark long before the city's other blues giants, 
including Johnnie Johnson, Oliver Sain, Tommy Bankhead and Bennie Smith, who 
died this month.
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"Henry was the history of St. Louis blues," said Ron Edwards, host of KDHX's 
"Nothin' But the Blues" program and a bottleneck guitar player who had 
played with Townsend. "It's rare to find someone who touched all the 
generations the way he did."

Townsend was the first Missourian to receive the National Heritage Award 
from the National Endowment for the Arts for his stature as an "American 
Master Artist." He also was a St. Louis Walk of Fame inductee.

In an interview with the Post-Dispatch tied in to his 90th birthday and the 
release of his book, "A Blues Life," Townsend looked over his career and 
said he wasn't sure he could put his finger on what he was most proud of.

"I won't proclaim I've totally accomplished it. But I'm proud I have 
accomplished as much as I have in the field I work in: music," he said at 
the time. "I had told myself I wouldn't give up until I made a dent in it 
somewhere, and that I've done. . . . I have walked (away from music, for 
years at a time), but I knew I wasn't gonna stay out when I walked out. It 
was just to rest awhile."

His latest honor came over the weekend at the inaugural Paramount Blues 
Festival in Wisconsin, where Townsend was the headliner. As the last living 
blues artist who recorded for Paramount Records in the early 1930s, he was 
considered the event's crown jewel. He was scheduled to perform Saturday but 
suffered breathing problems Friday night and was hospitalized at Columbia 
St. Mary's Hospital in Ozaukee, Wis.

The St. Louis Blues Society's John May was among those who accompanied him 
to the festival. He said Townsend still wanted to perform, but doctors 
advised against it. He also was scheduled to receive an award at the music 
festival on Sunday, but his health continued to fail.

"He received the award in his hospital room, and he was very alert and 
everything was good. And then he had more difficulty breathing," said May, 
who believes Townsend was at a point where he was accepting of his death.

The musician's son, Alonzo Townsend, also was with him. "He lived a long 
life and enjoyed his life all the way up to (his death)," he said.

Henry Townsend was born Oct. 27, 1909, in Shelby, Miss. But he wasn't long 
for Mississippi. As a child, he blew some snuff in a cousin's face, and his 
father scheduled a whipping for the prank. To avoid it, the 9-year-old 
Townsend jumped on a train in Cairo, Miss., where the family lived at time, 
jumped off in East St. Louis and settled in St. Louis.

Minus his parents, who moved to St. Louis a little later, he found work 
doing odd jobs, including cleaning a theater, shining shoes and selling 
whiskey. A woman he'd work with later bought him his first guitar from Sam 
Wolff's music store at Jefferson and Franklin.

After surrounding himself with names such as Walter Davis, Roosevelt Sykes 
and Lonnie Johnson, he made blues a St. Louis thing in the late 1920s.

One of Townsend's favorite memories was from 1937. He, Big Joe Williams, 
Sonny Boy Williamson, Davis and others poured into a car and headed to 
Aurora, Ill. Their recording sessions resulted in "Good Morning Little 
Schoolgirl," accepted as the basis for what became the Chicago blues sounds 
of Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf.

It's also the first known recording of blues ensembles and marked the 
progression of blues from a country, Delta style to something more modern 
and electric. Townsend was the last living musician from that session.

In addition to his son Alonzo, Townsend is survived by his children Deborah 
King, David Townsend and Lawrence Garnett, all of St. Louis, and seven 
grandchildren, also all of St. Louis. Townsend's wife, Vernell, who used to 
sing with him, died in 1995.

Funeral services are pending; he's expected to be buried alongside his wife 
at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery.