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21 May 01 - 08:35 AM (#467131) Subject: OBIT: Willie Foster Died yesterday From: SINSULL Another loss. from the Associated Press: Bluesman Willie Foster Dead at 79 The Associated Press May 20 2001 9:44PM JACKSON, Miss. (AP) - Internationally known bluesman Willie Foster died early Sunday of an apparent heart attack, shortly after a performance at a private party, a family member said. Son-in-law Anthony Evans said he found Foster, 79, unconscious in his hotel room early Sunday in Jackson, Tenn., where the two performed at a private party Saturday night. ``We played until 12 and went back to the hotel and he was just as happy as could be,'' Evans said. ``I left for about an hour and a half and came back and he wasn't conscious.'' Evans, a drummer, said it appeared Foster had a heart attack. Foster, a harmonica player, had been performing regularly and was scheduled to travel to Norway in two weeks for an engagement, Evans said. Over the years, Foster traveled the world and at times teamed with greats such as Muddy Waters. The two met when Foster was a teen-ager. Years later, their paths crossed again in Chicago. ``Somehow or another, we hooked up, and around 1954 or '55 Muddy took me with him to Carnegie Hall,'' Foster said in an interview last year. ``Now that's a beautiful place. It's large, and it holds a whole lot of people.'' Foster said he discovered the blues in 1928, when he walked into the Rexall Drug Store in Leland, Miss., and the owner let him put a harmonica on layaway. He got his first paying job in St. Louis around 1950. ``It was a colored-owned club,'' Foster said. ``Me, a drummer and a guitar man got paid 50 cents each for the night. We played for two weekends for that, and on the third weekend he paid us $1 each, and the week after that $1.50 apiece. ``Whew, we had 'em packin' in.''
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21 May 01 - 02:46 PM (#467245) Subject: RE: BS: Willie Foster Died yesterday From: katlaughing Wow...what an interesting life his must've been! Thanks, Sins, for psoting this. Sorry I didn't see it before. Do you 'spose having Bluesmen in heaven will keep the "blues" away? Rest well, Mr. Foster, kat |