Sonny Boy Nelson

Born Eugene Powell on December 23, 1908, in Utica, Mississippi, to parents whose interracial relationship set him apart from birth, Sonny Boy Nelson displayed an early aptitude for music. By age seven he had taken up the guitar, later expanding his command to banjo, harmonica, mandolin, violin, and a range of brass and woodwind instruments. A childhood mishap left him blind in one eye, yet he had adopted his stage name by 1936, when he traveled to New Orleans and recorded six sides for Bluebird Records, among them a rendition of “Pony Blues.” Those tracks marked the end of his studio activity for more than three decades.

When the blues revival surfaced, Powell was located once more and invited to perform at the 1972 Festival of American Folklife in Washington, D.C. The warmly received appearance was captured on tape, with excerpts later issued on an Adelphi Records anthology of festival performances, confirming that his technical command remained undiminished. In 1975 the Italian imprint Albatross Records released the sole album issued under Nelson’s name during his lifetime, Police in Mississippi Blues. He remained active on stage into the mid-1990s, earning admiration from a younger generation of blues musicians that included Lonnie Pitchford, Keb’ Mo’, and Alvin Youngblood Hart. Declining health eventually led to his residence in a Greenville, Mississippi, nursing home, where he died on November 4, 1998.