Cootie Stark

Born James Miller on December 27, 1927, in Abbeville, South Carolina, Cootie Stark ranks among the final authentic practitioners of Piedmont blues guitar. His early years unfolded across Anderson County, where a first guitar reached him at age fourteen. Still a teenager, he relocated to nearby Greenville, South Carolina, and, hampered by severely impaired vision that later rendered him legally blind, took to performing on street corners in the late 1930s after failing to secure other employment. There he absorbed the techniques of busking and assembled an extensive songbook from Baby Tate, Pink Anderson, and Peg Leg Sam, earning the nickname “Sugar Man” in the process. Recognition arrived only in his seventies, when Tim Duffy, founder of the Music Maker Foundation, encountered Stark performing Fats Domino material. The label issued Stark’s debut album, Sugar Man, in 1999, followed in 2003 by Raw Sugar, which included Taj Mahal’s accompaniment.