Biography
Known professionally as Memphis Willie B., Willie Borum remained a central figure on the Memphis blues and jug band scene. Skilled on harmonica as well as guitar, he energized any ensemble he joined and also stood out powerfully when performing alone.
Born in 1911 in Shelby County, Tennessee, Borum began learning guitar in early childhood, receiving his main instruction from his father and from Memphis medicine show performer Jim Jackson. In his late teens he worked with Jack Kelly’s Jug Busters, collecting tips on the streets while occasional house parties and country suppers supplemented his small earnings. He later joined the Memphis Jug Band, one of the two professional groups then active. The band played regularly at the future site of W.C. Handy Park in Memphis and traveled as far as New Orleans for Mardi Gras. During the 1930s he took up the harmonica, studying under Noah Lewis, Memphis’s leading harp player and a mainstay of Gus Cannon’s Jug Stompers.
Moving away from a strict jug band style, Willie B. began collaborating intermittently with traveling Delta blues artists, appearing at various events alongside Rice Miller, Willie Brown, Garfield Akers, and Robert Johnson. In 1934 he recorded under his own name in New York for Vocalion, but soon returned to juke joints and gambling houses with Son Joe, Joe Hill Louis, and Will Shade, continuing until he enlisted in the U.S. Army around 1943.
After the war he encountered a changed world. A brief attempt to resume his former activities ended when he abandoned music for steady employment. The story might have stopped there, yet in 1961, amid the height of the folk and blues revival, he was located and cut a superb session at Sun Studios for Prestige’s Bluesville label. The recording brought a modest resurgence; over the next few years Willie B. appeared at festivals and coffeehouses with longtime Memphis associates Gus Cannon and Furry Lewis. Soon afterward he withdrew from music once more and faded from view entirely, passing away in Memphis in 1993.
Born in 1911 in Shelby County, Tennessee, Borum began learning guitar in early childhood, receiving his main instruction from his father and from Memphis medicine show performer Jim Jackson. In his late teens he worked with Jack Kelly’s Jug Busters, collecting tips on the streets while occasional house parties and country suppers supplemented his small earnings. He later joined the Memphis Jug Band, one of the two professional groups then active. The band played regularly at the future site of W.C. Handy Park in Memphis and traveled as far as New Orleans for Mardi Gras. During the 1930s he took up the harmonica, studying under Noah Lewis, Memphis’s leading harp player and a mainstay of Gus Cannon’s Jug Stompers.
Moving away from a strict jug band style, Willie B. began collaborating intermittently with traveling Delta blues artists, appearing at various events alongside Rice Miller, Willie Brown, Garfield Akers, and Robert Johnson. In 1934 he recorded under his own name in New York for Vocalion, but soon returned to juke joints and gambling houses with Son Joe, Joe Hill Louis, and Will Shade, continuing until he enlisted in the U.S. Army around 1943.
After the war he encountered a changed world. A brief attempt to resume his former activities ended when he abandoned music for steady employment. The story might have stopped there, yet in 1961, amid the height of the folk and blues revival, he was located and cut a superb session at Sun Studios for Prestige’s Bluesville label. The recording brought a modest resurgence; over the next few years Willie B. appeared at festivals and coffeehouses with longtime Memphis associates Gus Cannon and Furry Lewis. Soon afterward he withdrew from music once more and faded from view entirely, passing away in Memphis in 1993.
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