David "Honeyboy" Edwards is a living legend of the Delta blues, and the Purple Heart Theater on Fort Myers Beach is honored to be among the first performance venues to welcome this ageless acoustic guitarist and singer since he received a Grammy for Lifetime Achievement on January 30, 2010 (announced during the live Grammy show on January 31). Mr. Edwards will perform at the Purple Heart on Sunday, February 21 from 5:00 – 8:00 p.m.

Honeyboy Edwards, at age 94, and his close friend, bluesman and pianist Pinetop Perkins (age 96), are the last of the original Delta blues players still touring the United States. Honeyboy, as he is known, continues to perform up to 100 concerts a year, and undertook a tour of Europe in September and October 2009. His most recent album, released in 2008 by Earwig Records, is Roamin' and Ramblin'.

"Guys like him are the last links to a whole culture of America,” notes bass guitarist Steve Arvey, who will play second guitar with Honeyboy Edwards at the Purple Heart Theater; Michael Frank will play harmonica. "He and Pinetop Perkins are the last guys that actually hopped freight trains to get to gigs. They are the real deal.”

Added Arvey: "Thank goodness for Carl Conley and the Purple Heart Theater. Carl recognized the importance of booking Honeyboy long before this Grammy for Lifetime Achievement. These older artists who are still around, they are the real Delta blues. We've got to get them out there while we still can.”

Honeyboy Edwards' life has been intertwined with nearly every major blues legend, including Robert Johnson, Charlie Patton, Big Joe Williams, Rice "Sonny Boy Williamson" Miller, Howlin' Wolf, Peetie Wheatstraw, Sunnyland Slim, Lightnin' Hopkins, Big Walter, Little Walter, Magic Sam, Muddy Waters, and many more. He is among the last living bluesmen who knew Robert Johnson, and says he was present on the fateful night when Johnson drank a fatal draught of poisoned whiskey (supposedly provided by a jealous woman).

Revered for his encyclopedic knowledge and memory of the early masters of the blues, Honeyboy Edwards is highly respected as a documentarian and historian, as well as a living part of the history of the blues. As a performer, "he is very animated and very physical,” says his manager and friend, Michael Frank. "He gets 100% into every performance.”

Speaking of the Grammy Award, Frank added: "It was neat to see the show up close, and for Honeyboy to win a Lifetime Achievement Award along with Leonard Cohen, Bobby Darin, Michael Jackson, Loretta Lynn, André Previn and Clark Terry.”

This reporter was honored to speak with Honeyboy Edwards over the phone. When asked how he felt upon receiving the Grammy for Lifetime Achievement, he replied: "It really surprised me. I never expected to win anything. But that's just how it goes in life.” Although this award was decades in coming his way, Honeyboy was philosophical: "Well, it was slow motion. But that's still motion.”

The birth of a bluesman

Born on June 28, 1915, David Edwards was the son of cotton sharecroppers in Shaw, Mississippi; his father played guitar and violin and his mother played harmonica. In the 1920s, young David would spend his nights in the Jackson, Miss., cotton fields listening to Tommy Johnson and others, playing the blues. In his autobiography, The World Don't Owe Me Nothing, Honeyboy writes: "Listening to Tommy, that's when I really learned something about how to play guitar."

In an interview on the NBC Nightly News on December 13, 2009, Edwards recalled his first performance, in 1928 at age 13. "They was giving a party and they said – ‘We ain't got no music. Let's get that Honeyboy down here.' So I started playing for them. I played the same piece and sang a hundred songs. Every time I looked like I'd get tired, they'd give me a drink of whiskey. They'd keep me hollerin'. That's the first time I got drunk in my life. My first performance: 1928. I'll never forget it.”

In 1932, at 17, Honeyboy hit the road to play professionally with Big Joe Williams, who was impressed by his self-taught guitar style. "Big Joe asked Honeyboy's parents if he could take him on the road,” says Michael Frank. "He had just met Honeyboy, but he was impressed with his ability. So they went out on the road together when Honeyboy was just 17.”

When they parted ways about six months later (Williams was "a big man and a mean drunk,” according to Michel Frank), Honeyboy Edwards started the long walk back home. While on a bridge in New Orleans, some people asked him to play, and the young musician discovered he could make both music and money on his own. "So he went to Memphis, and made music his life,” Michael Frank says.

In a National Public Radio interview with Andrea Seabrook, Honeyboy reminisced about the era of hopping freight trains between gigs, sleeping all day to avoid getting thrown in jail for vagrancy when Jim Crow laws held sway in the South. He'd go out at night to play in bars and earn money.

He recalled passing a field one day where sharecroppers toiled in the sun, picking cotton. Seeing the young man stroll along with a guitar slung over his shoulder, one of the pickers shouted out: "You better put that guitar down, or you're gonna starve to death!” Honeyboy serenely recalls: "I just kept on walking.”

A lifetime of music

In 1942, folklorist Alan Lomax recorded 15 sides of Honeyboy Edwards' music in Clarksdale, Mississippi for the Library of Congress. Honeyboy didn't record again commercially until 1951, when herecorded "Who May Your Regular Be" for Arc Records, and "Build A Cave" as 'Mr. Honey' for Artist. He has 13 solo albums and appears on dozens of albums with other artists, including Fleetwood Mac in the 1970s.

Honeyboy has written a number of blues hits, including "Long Tall Woman Blues", "Sweet Home Chicago" and "Just Like Jesse James".

Moving to Chicago in the early 1950s, Honeyboy played small clubs and street corners with Floyd Jones, Johnny Temple, and Kansas City Red. In 1972, Honeyboy met Michael Frank, and they have remained fast friends and musical collaborators to this day. Michael Frank has managed Honeyboy's career for 27 years, and got the blues legend's oral history/autobiography, The World Don't Owe Me Nothing, published. The book won both a Handy Award and a Keeping the Blues Alive award.

"The title of his bio reflects the way he feels about his life,” Frank says. "He is satisfied with what he has done, where he has gone, what he's accomplished.” Speaking to Honeyboy, or watching videos of him play, one gets a sense of his pride, ease with himself and serenity of spirit.

"Honeyboy has done a lot of documentaries,” said Michael Frank. "He has an incredible, photographic memory about the period of time when the blues developed, so he is also known as a great oral historian. We started his biography in 1988. The body of the book was him telling his stories, over about an 8-year period. Then we organized it all, and did research to fill in some details, collaborating on the book with Janice Martinson.”

Adds Steve Arvey: "My favorite thing is just driving in the car with Honeyboy and listening to him tell his stories. He has amazing stories.”

Michael Frank founded Earwig Records, and in 1979 Honeyboy and his friends Sunnyland Slim, Kansas City Red, Floyd Jones, and Big Walter Horton recorded Old Friends.Honeyboy's early Library of Congress performances and more recent recordings were combined on the wonderful compilation album, Delta Bluesman, released by Earwig in 1992.

On the acclaimed album, Last of the Great Mississippi Bluesmen: Live in Dallas, Honeyboy Edwards, Henry James Townsend, Robert Lockwood Jr., Joe Willie "Pinetop" Perkins recorded live together in October 2004. Then aged from 89 to 94, all had received the National Endowment for the Arts Heritage Fellowship Award, the highest honor in the U.S. for traditional arts.

Honeyboy Edwards has accumulated many honors in addition to his recent Grammy for Lifetime Achievement, among them:

Inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame (1996)

Acoustic Blues Artist of the Year at the 26th W.C. Handy Blues Awards (2005)

Keeping the Blues Alive Award, from the Blues Foundation (2005)

Acoustic Artist of the Year at The Blues Music Awards (2007)

National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences Lifetime Achievement Award

National Endowment for the Arts Heritage Fellowship Award

Traveling blues

With an itinerary that would exhaust most people half his age, Honeyboy Edwards seems to be made for the road. "We'll be arriving in Fort Myers Beach on Sunday, February 21, staying until Monday,” said Michael Frank, "after playing The Colony in Miami on Saturday night. Later that week, on Thursday, we'll go down to Jackson, where Honeyboy will receive a Governor's Award from the State of Mississippi.”

During the three days prior to the Grammys, both musicians had played for school children and at a music show in Mississippi, as well as performing at a private party.

"We're doing a whole week of one-nighters the second week in March,” Frank continues. "New York, Connecticut . . . then we come home for a week, and then head out to British Columbia, Canada for a week. There are lots of serious blues fans in Canada.”

Michael Frank acknowledges the toll of life on the road, the pace of which is only going to accelerate in the aftermath of the Grammy Award. "You get worn out from traveling, but Honeyboy really loves playing. When we've been home for a while he gets restless, and he really wants to get out there again.” Home is Chicago, where Honeyboy's daughter, stepdaughter and a number of grandchildren live.

The legendary bluesman himself observes: "The last month we've been working pretty steady. But if I lay around the house I'm liable to get lazy and bored. I've got to stay on the go.” When asked his favorite venue, Honeyboy doesn't hesitate: "London. I like the people and the food.”

He adds: "I still like to play, have a drink, and talk to young women. I can do anything I used to do. Just takes more time.”

An intimate venue for the blues

Steve Arvey and Michael Frank say they and Honeyboy Edwards look forward to performing at the Purple Heart Theater on February 21. "The Purple Heart will be the smallest venue I've ever played with Honeyboy,” said Arvey. "Carl walked me all around, and it's a really cool space.” He adds: I'm really excited to perform with Honeyboy. He still has the tone, and the dexterity to play a mean slide guitar. I'll be playing second guitar, and I'll talk about some of the history of the blues and do a bit of picking before he comes out on stage.”

"We've got lots of different styles of playing,” Honeyboy Edwards told the Island Sand Paper. "There's the low-down-dirty-shame blues, heartsick blues, the shuffle blues – that's the one that really gets you moving around.”

Having collaborated with seven decades worth of blues greats, and a number of rock musicians, Honeyboy Edwards demonstrates that great music transcends genres. "I will be glad to come and perform for you in Fort Myers Beach, and I hope to meet some of the people there,” he said. He also hopes to find time for a visit to the beach. While he has performed, as far back as the 1940s, in Belle Glade, Miami and Ft. Lauderdale, Honeyboy Edwards has never been to our fair island.

The Purple Heart Theater is fortunate indeed to host this Delta legend and his musical partners with the Grammy Award glow still fresh. Let's show Honeyboy Edwards and friends a very warm Fort Myers Beach welcome.

Tickets to the February 21st show are available online at islandartsfoundation.org, or call the ArtsLine at 239-765-6988. Copies of The World Don't Owe Me Nothing will be available for purchase at the Purple Heart Theater on the night of Honeyboy Edwards' performance.

Janet Sailian