Born into a sharecropping family in the Mississippi Delta, with a guitar playing father, you could naturally assume Magic Sam was born into the blues. Actually, unlike most blues players from the Delta in that era, Sam grew up in a community that was heavily into square dancing. For them fiddle players and square dance callers were the local stars. Sam was drawn naturally to music at an early age and was inspired by a highly popular local fiddle player and square dance caller named Roy Moses.
At home Sam would spend his time jerry-rigging simple string instruments and playing them, rather than doing his chores. This resulted in some serious whippings by his father. It reached a point that one of their neighbors reached out his Aunt Lily in Chicago, who was married to an aspiring musician named Shakey Jake Harris. Sam left Mississippi with his aunt and uncle and lived with them in Chicago. According to Wikipedia this was in 1956.
However, we know that this happened at least as early as 1950, because that is when his next door neighbor arrived from Mississippi to join his father who had migrated Chicago four years earlier. That young neighbor, Syl Johnson, would went on to become famous himself. He had a hit record with “Different Strokes” in 1967 and “Take Me to the River” in 1975.
Syl Johnson recalled that his then 13 year old neighbor Sam Maghett was still playing “hillbilly” style when he met him. Syl and his brother Mack (who would later become Magic Sam’s bassist) turned him on to the blues, and they were encouraged by Sam’s uncle Shakey Jake.
Rolling forward 8 years to 1958, Shakey Jake Harris was in the studio backed by Magic Sam and Syl Johnson recording his first single, which was produced by Willie Dixon.
A year earlier, Magic Sam had already recorded his first single for Cobra Records, a short-lived label that also had Buddy Guy and Otis Rush under contract. Cobra folded in 1959 and to make matters worse, Uncle Sam drafted Magic Sam into the Army. Sam deserted and was dishonorably discharged, and spent 6 months behind bars. Those who knew him well said that Sam was never the same person after that experience with the Army.
After Cobra folded, Chess Records passed on signing Sam, but in 1962 Muddy Waters gave Sam a huge break when he called him up on stage during a show at the Alex Club on Chicago’s West Side. Although he tripped getting up on stage, he appears to have delivered the goods. Fortunately, the founder of Delmark Records was in the house and was blown away.
Nonetheless, it took until 1967 before Sam’s album “West Side Soul” was released on Delmark Records. That was followed up in November of 1969 by the release of the album “Black Magic” just days before Sam’s tragic death.
In 1969 Magic Sam appeared at the Ann Arbor Blues Festival at which most of the heavy weights of blues appeared: B.B. King, Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, Otis Rush, Buddy Guy and many more. Sam blew the audience away and as a result Stax Records wanted to sign him as soon as he could get out of his deal with Delmark Records. It was not to be, in December of 1969 Sam complained of heartburn, collapsed and died of a heart attack at the age of 32.
It’s hard to imagine what he would have accomplished had he lived, but even at that young age he is remembered as one of the greatest blues guitarists of all time.
If you’d like to learn more, here are some of the links to the sources I used for this video.
msbluestrail.o...
www.allmusic.c...
www.americanbl...
www.npr.org/20...
Want to check out a "Soul" Square Dance album?
• Hurry (or 5 & 3)