Michael Burks

Born in Milwaukee in 1957, blues guitarist Michael Burks took up the instrument while still a child, spurred by the music that surrounded him at home. His father, a bassist who frequently shared stages with harmonica legend Sonny Boy Williamson II, and his grandfather, a Delta-style bluesman from Camden, Arkansas, provided the initial spark. At five he began playing alongside his father and absorbed material from the family’s record collection; his father even offered a dollar for every song the boy could master from start to finish. A year later Burks made his first public appearance, sitting in with a cousin’s band.

In the early ’70s the family relocated to Arkansas, where his father opened the Bradley Ferry Country Club, a 300-seat juke joint. Burks was appointed leader of the house band and accompanied a steady stream of visiting blues and R&B artists. When the club shut down in the mid-’80s he set music aside long enough to work as a mechanical technician for Lockheed Martin, though he continued performing at clubs and regional festivals.

Burks released his first album, the self-produced From the Inside Out, in 1997. Blues Access called it “the most impressive indie in recent memory,” and Living Blues placed it among “the best debut discs of the year.” His Alligator Records debut, Make It Rain, appeared in 2001, recorded in Memphis under the supervision of Jim Gaines (Santana, Stevie Ray Vaughan) and Bruce Iglauer (Albert Collins, Johnny Winter). I Smell Smoke followed in 2003 and Iron Man in 2008, both on the same label. On May 6, 2012, after returning from a European tour, Burks collapsed at the Atlanta airport and could not be revived; he was 54.