My Friend "Honeyboy Edwards" - Correspondent Mike Packer

I have to admit I am probably one of the luckiest musicians in the world to be able to say I knew and played guitar with Honeyboy Edwards. I have been playing 2nd guitar with him for the last year and a half and sometimes with my band which was nicknamed "The Honeyboy Band". Even at 96 he could still play. His slide work was still top shelf."Sweet Home Chicago", "Dust My Broom". I certainly admired his playing, I was learning from the master but it was his manner, his voice and his storytelling was what I found most compelling.



Honeyboy knew and played with Robert Johnson. He was recorded by Alan Lomax for the Library of Congress in 1942. Those recordings are simply fabulous. Honeyboy was an american legend in blues history but it took years to gain the respect from the music world. It did finally happen. In 2006 he won a grammy for his "The World Don't Owe Me Nothing" CD and in 2010 he won the Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award.



I went to Clarkdale Missisippi last April and played guitar with Honeyboy on the mainstage @ The Juke Joint Festival which was Honeyboy's last gig. I could actually see and feel that his touring days were coming to an end. I saw the plantations and the cottonfields and realized what he must have endured growing up. His grandfather was a slave and his father a sharecropper who bought him his first guitar at the age of 8. Honeyboy was the blues.



Honeyboy Edwards is the last of the true Delta bluesman. I am proud to say I knew and played guitar with him. I will keep his name alive by mentioning his name at every gig I play from now on until I meet up with him again down that blues highway.