BB King was already doing well when I was a boy, he's from a town 30 miles from my hometown. Local acts included Little Milton, Sam Chatmon, Son Thomas, Boogaloo Ames and Pinetop Perkins. A lot of those guys have Youtube videos. My favorite was Sam Chatmon. He was a really nice man and very kind to me as I followed him around and he got me into the juke joints that he played where I'd be the only white face in the crowd. We had house parties where everyone would spend the whole day and pitch in to pay for local musicians to play for the group. It was a great time. With the death of Pinetop last year, all of them are gone now. There are some nice videos of Sam on Youtube. He played with the Mississippi Sheiks back in the thirties.
