Louisiana pianist and singer Henry Gray launched his involvement in American roots music during the 1940s. Born on January 19, 1925, in Kenner, Louisiana, a suburb of New Orleans, he spent his childhood in Alsen, located several miles north of Baton Rouge. At age eight he took up the piano, absorbing techniques from radio broadcasts, phonograph records, and neighborhood resident Mrs. White. He soon accompanied services on both piano and organ at the local church, prompting his family to acquire an instrument for their home. Although his parents prohibited blues in their household, they permitted practice sessions at Mrs. White’s residence; by sixteen he received an invitation to perform at a nearby club, where his father accompanied him and, upon observing the respectable earnings, withdrew any objections to blues piano.
Following military service in the South Pacific during World War II, Gray moved to Chicago in 1946. He immersed himself in the city’s postwar nightclub circuit, studying its leading keyboard players. While sitting in one evening he attracted the notice of Big Maceo Merriweather, who mentored the younger musician, escorted him through the blues venues, and facilitated introductions to figures such as Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf. In 1956 Wolf invited Gray into his band; Gray accepted and remained Wolf’s principal pianist until 1968. During the same period he contributed session work for Chess Records and, across subsequent decades, appeared on recordings or shared stages with Robert Lockwood Jr., Billy Boy Arnold, Muddy Waters, Johnny Shines, Hubert Sumlin, Lazy Lester, Little Walter Jacobs, Otis Rush, Buddy Guy, James Cotton, Little Milton Campbell, Jimmy Rogers, Jimmy Reed, and Koko Taylor, among others. After his father’s death Gray left Wolf’s employ in 1968 and returned to Alsen to help his mother operate the family fish market. For the following fifteen years he worked as a roofer for the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board.
Back in Louisiana he appeared at virtually every New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival as well as at the Montreal Jazz Festival, the Chicago Blues Festival, and the San Francisco Blues Festival. The Cleveland-based Telarc label’s Tribute to Howlin’ Wolf earned him a 1999 Grammy nomination, while in 1998 Mick Jagger personally selected him to perform at the singer’s fifty-fifth birthday celebration in Paris alongside other prominent blues artists. Although Gray had issued only sporadic recordings under his own name during his long sideman career, activity increased in the 1990s. His discography includes Lucky Man (Blind Pig, 1988), Louisiana Swamp Blues, Vol. 2 (Wolf Records, 1990), Watch Yourself (Lucky Cat, 2001), Henry Gray Plays Chicago Blues (Hightone Records, 2001), and the 2004 CD and DVD packages by Henry Gray & the Cats (Lucky Cat). In 2006 the National Endowment for the Arts awarded him its National Heritage Fellowship; 2009 brought the Lucky Cat release Times Are Gettin’ Hard. The year 2017 saw both his induction into the Blues Hall of Fame and the appearance of the album 92, whose title reflected his age at issuance. Henry Gray died on February 17, 2020, in Baton Rouge at the age of ninety-five.
