Sam Myers

Samuel Joseph Myers (February 19, 1936 – July 17, 2006)[1]

Sam Myers
was an American blues musician and songwriter. He was an
accompanist on dozens of recordings by blues artists over five
decades. He began his career as a drummer for Elmore James but
was most famous as a blues vocalist and blues harp player. For
nearly two decades he was the featured vocalist for Anson
Funderburgh & the Rockets.[2]

Contents
Myers in concert, 2006
Biography
Background information
Legacy
Birth name Samuel Joseph
Awards Myers
References Born February 19, 1936
External links Laurel, Mississippi,
United States
Died July 17, 2006
Biography (aged 70)
Dallas, Texas,
Myers was born in Laurel, Mississippi, United States.[3] He United States
acquired juvenile cataracts at age seven and was left legally blind
for the rest of his life, despite corrective surgery.[2] He could Genres Blues
make out shapes and shadows, but could not read print at all; he Occupation(s) Musician,
was taught Braille.[4] songwriter
Instruments Vocalist, drums,
He acquired an interest in music while a schoolboy in Jackson,
Mississippi, and became skilled enough at playing the trumpet blues harp
and drums that he received a nondegree scholarship from the Associated acts Anson
American Conservatory of Music (formerly the American Funderburgh and
Conservatory School of Music) in Chicago. Myers attended the Rockets
school by day and at night frequented the nightclubs of the South
Website www
Side.[2]
.sweetsammyers
There he met and was sitting in with Jimmy Rogers, Muddy .com (http://www.s
Waters, Howling Wolf, Little Walter, Hound Dog Taylor, Robert weetsammyers.co
[3]
Lockwood, Jr., and Elmore James. Myers played drums with m)
Elmore James on a fairly steady basis from 1952 until James's
death, in 1963, and is credited on many of James's historic recordings for Chess Records.[3] In 1956, Myers
wrote and recorded what was to be his most famous single, "Sleeping in the Ground",[2] a song that has
been covered by Blind Faith, Eric Clapton, Robert Cray, and many other blues artists; it was also featured
on Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour show on "Sleep".
From the early 1960s until 1986, Myers worked clubs in and around Jackson and across the South in the
(formerly) racially segregated string of venues known as the Chitlin' Circuit.[3] He also toured the world
with Sylvia Embry and the Mississippi All-Stars Blues Band.[2]

In 1986, Myers met Anson Funderburgh, from Plano, Texas, and joined his band, The Rockets.[2] Myers
toured all over the US and the world with the Rockets, enjoying a partnership that endured until the time of
his death, from complications due to surgery for throat cancer, on July 17, 2006, in Dallas, Texas.[1] Just
before Myers died, he toured as a solo artist in Sweden, Norway and Denmark, with the Swedish band
Bloosblasters.[5]

Legacy
That same year, the University Press of Mississippi published Myers's autobiography, Sam Myers: The
Blues is My Story.[4] The writer Jeff Horton, whose work has appeared in Blues Revue and Southwest
Blues, chronicled Myers's history and delved into his memories of life on the road.

Awards
Myers and the Rockets collectively won nine W. C. Handy Awards, including three awards in the category
Band of the Year and the 2004 award for Best Traditional Album of the Year. In 2005, Myers's album
Coming from the Old School was nominated in the category Traditional Blues Album of the Year.[6]

In January 2000, Myers was inducted into the Farish Street Walk of Fame in Jackson, Mississippi, an honor
he shares with Dorothy Moore and Sonny Boy Williamson II. In 2006, just months before Myers died, the
Governor of Mississippi presented him with the Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts, and he was
named the state's Blues Ambassador by the Mississippi Arts Commission.

References
1. Doc Rock. "The Dead Rock Stars Club 2006 July to December" (http://thedeadrockstarsclu
b.com/2006b.html). Thedeadrockstarsclub.com. Retrieved July 27, 2015.
2. Dahl, Bill. "Sam Myers: Biography" (http://www.allmusic.com/artist/sam-myers-mn00002406
19). AllMusic. Retrieved July 27, 2015.
3. Colin Larkin, ed. (1995). The Guinness Who's Who of Blues (Second ed.). Guinness
Publishing. pp. 277/8. ISBN 0-85112-673-1.
4. Myers, Sam (2006). The Blues Is My Story. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.
ISBN 978-1578068968.
5. "Bloosblasters: Bloosblasters är ett genuint liveband" (https://web.archive.org/web/2015080
1044926/http://www.bloosblasters.se/). Bloosblasters.se. July 14, 2011. Archived from the
original (http://www.bloosblasters.se) on August 1, 2015. Retrieved July 27, 2015.
6. [1] (http://www.phoenixfm.com/digitalblues.php) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20051
227024625/http://www.phoenixfm.com/digitalblues.php) December 27, 2005, at the
Wayback Machine

External links
Mnblues.com article (http://www.mnblues.com/profile/anson-pf99.html)

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sam_Myers&oldid=1058250438"

This page was last edited on 2 December 2021, at 10:57 (UTC).

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