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Artist
Willie Foster
12+ albums
bluesharmonicaharmonica bluesAll
about
Internationally known harmonica player and vocalist WILLIE J. FOSTER (1921.09.19/Leland, MS – 2001.05.20/Jackson, TN) played with blues greats Muddy Waters, Jimmy Reed, Howlin’ Wolf, Little Walter, and others during the 1950s and early 1960s. Despite health problems later in his life, he toured often and performed in many countries. Foster always returned to his roots in Mississippi’s Delta region, though, where he was known as the “Godfather of the Blues.” The son of sharecroppers, William James Foster was born on September 19, 1921, on a cotton sack in a field outside Leland, Mississippi. In interviews, he often told the story of his mother’s labor during the late-summer harvest, when the plantation owner told her to keep picking cotton. “She couldn’t get to the house when the pain started,” Foster said in an interview with Stand on the Ocean Records. “Some people run across there and put down a sack–and boom, there I were.” After Foster was born, his mother was unable to have more children. He helped his family farm and sharecrop from ages seven to 17. The family earned about $100 a year, and Foster often wore sacks tied to his feet instead of shoes. After the fourth grade, he attended school only sporadically, when rain kept him from working in the fields. Foster was seven when he bought his first harmonica for 25 cents on lay-away at the Rexall Drug Store in Leland. With only a dime to put toward the first payment, the boy pumped water to earn the rest of the money, he
