Forest City Joe, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

    

Forest City Joe

American musician

Date of Birth: 10-Jul-1926

Place of Birth: Hughes, Arkansas, United States

Date of Death: 03-Apr-1960

Profession: singer-songwriter, songwriter

Zodiac Sign: Cancer


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About Forest City Joe

  • Joe Bennie Pugh (July 10, 1926 – April 3, 1960), known as Forrest City Joe or Forest City Joe, was an American blues musician who is mainly remembered for his ability as a harmonica player.
  • He performed with other major blues acts of the period; he was the harmonica player in Muddy Waters's first band and regularly performed in the Chicago area.
  • Despite his meager recording career, Joe was considered one of the top harmonica players of the era.Pugh was born in Hughes, Arkansas, near Forrest City, and was raised on a cotton farm as an uneducated field worker.
  • As a young boy, he began helping entertainers and playing in local venues, having taught himself to play the harmonica and other instruments.
  • In the early 1940s, Pugh expanded his touring in Arkansas.
  • His playing was heavily influenced by John Lee "Sonny Boy" Williamson.
  • Pugh imitated Williamson's style and vocals, but over time he developed his own unique sound.
  • Later in the decade Pugh met Big Joe Williams, and the two performed together in the St.
  • Louis area.
  • In 1947, Pugh went under the stage name Forrest City Joe, and relocated to Chicago for performances.On December 2, 1948, Joe recorded a single in his only session at Aristocrat Records (later Chess Records).
  • Muddy Waters was intended to be a session musician for the recording, but instead Joe was paired with J.
  • C.
  • Coles, a jazz guitarist, who contributed very little to the recordings.
  • A single resulted from the sessions, but other songs were unissued because the guitarist had hindered the recordings.
  • Joe and Waters had previously been working together in a band, and Waters remembered Joe as being a "great harp player".
  • In 1949, shortly after Williamson's death, the single, "Memory of Sonny Boy" backed with "A Woman on Every Street", was released (credited to Forest City Joe) but was not commercially successful.
  • Joe briefly moved to Memphis to perform on radio programs with Howlin' Wolf and Rice Miller – who had adopted the name Sonny Boy Williamson – and found employment with Willie Love's Three Aces. He returned to Chicago in 1949, and lived on South Ellis Avenue, where his home became a meeting place for fellow musicians in the area.
  • Joe worked in a band headed by Otis Spann, which mostly performed at the Tick Tock Lounge.
  • The band stayed together for four years, until Spann left to join Muddy Waters's new band.
  • In 1955, Joe moved back to Arkansas and generally removed himself from the music scene, except for occasional gigs with Willie Cobbs in small venues.
  • In August 1959, Joe was located by Alan Lomax, and he recorded for the final time for the Atlantic label.
  • Joe started performing more and was expected to return to Chicago.However, he died on April 3, 1960, at the age of 33, when his truck flipped over after returning from a dance in Horseshoe Lake, Arkansas.
  • The crash crushed Joe's skull, killing him instantly.
  • In 1995, a compilation album entitled Downhome Delta Harmonica was released on the DeltaCat label.
  • The album covers all of Joe's material along with that of another musician, Polka Dot Slim.

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