Josh White

Among devotees of the blues, Josh White registered primarily as a product of the folk revival. The latter phase of his professional life placed him in New York, where he performed regularly for coffeehouse and cabaret audiences while associating with Burl Ives, Woody Guthrie, and the transplanted Piedmont performers Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee. During the 1960s in Chicago he cultivated a flamboyant stage presence, wearing his shirt unbuttoned to the waist in the manner of Harry Belafante and drawing on folk-revival staples such as "Scarlet Ribbons." In that period he functioned as a polished entertainer whose appeal rested on both personal charisma and theatrical vocal delivery. Few of his listeners realized that he had already established himself as a central exponent of the Piedmont blues tradition. Earlier he had served an apprenticeship under several towering figures in blues and sacred music, among them Willie Walker, Blind Blake, and Blind Joe Taggart, the last of whom he accompanied on record; some accounts also link him briefly to Blind Lemon Jefferson. Working independently, White cut both secular and gospel material, among them a definitive reading of "Blood Red River." A precise guitarist with an ingratiating timbre, he steadily refined his stagecraft. Like countless other musicians who left the Carolinas and Virginia for northern cities, he absorbed urban conventions while retaining his instrumental command, even as the raw rural character of his music receded. In common with other astute blues practitioners, he treated his regional heritage as a means of expanding his professional horizons, selecting whichever stylistic register promised the greatest return at any given moment.