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J. B. Hutto Sang Like He Played Guitar, With Attitude

Bullseye Blues
The cover of the 1999 reissue of J.B. Hutto's final album 'Rock With Me Tonight.'

J. B. Hutto's style was a throw back, but his commitment made it far more than just a rehashing of things past.

Joseph Benjamin Hutto was born in Blackville, South Carolina, and raised in Augusta, Georgia. He was the son of a preacher and, like so many Blues artists, began singing in a gospel group. The group, The Golden Crowns, included his three brothers and three sisters and sang regularly in local churches.

http://youtu.be/ocDxXbkrGX0

After his father died in 1949, the family moved to Chicago. Soon after, Hutto was drafted to serve as a truck driver in the Korean War. After the war he played drums with a local Chicago band and also spent time playing piano before settling on guitar.  At first he played on the streets, where he started pulling together the group that would be called The Hawks - named so for Chicago's notorious winds.

After a few years playing local clubs and doing a couple of recordings, Hutto became disenchanted with the music business. That may have been influenced by the night a woman broke his guitar over her husband's head.  He then spent over a decade as a janitor in a funeral home. In the 1960s he formed another version of The Hawks, playing with them until Hutto's hero Hound Dog Taylor died and J. B. took over the lead of Taylor's band, The House Rockers.

http://youtu.be/yjgUto6PLu8

That ended quickly when Hutto moved the Boston and formed The New Hawks and his real widespread success really started. In the late 1970s through his passing in 1983 J. B. Hutto recorded several albums ending with Rock with Me Tonight, which some have called a "perfect" album.

While I may not choose to call anything "perfect" I will say that the final J. B. Hutto album is as fine an example of the hard-edged "in your face" Blues style as I know.

http://youtu.be/akvXsZko7DQ

J. B. Hutto carried on the raw Chicago Blues of Hound Dog Taylor and played like an unstoppable force of nature, never compromising for wider success.  The world of the Blues was plenty big enough for him.

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