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OBITUARY 

from Deja News              Pat LeBlanc              crossroads@TECINFO.COM              Date: Thursday, November 05, 1998 4:23 PM              Subject: Eugene Powell has passed    It's a sad day in the Delta.  Eugene "Sonny Boy Nelson" Powell passed  away yesterday at Delta Medical Center in Greenville, Mississippi.  I confirmed this with Redmond Funeral Home.  His Family has not been   notified.  Eugene spent the last days of his life in a lonely nursing   home.  He was a good friend.  I enjoyed his company and I'm glad I had  an opportunity to work with this blues legend.  I will post the obituary from the Delta Democrat Times in the morning.  It is a very sad day.  Patrick LeBlanc

 

 

BIOGRAPHY

This Biography is from  Brian O'Connor  of Founder Delta Blues . Com  Born:  December 23, 1908,  Died:  November 4, 1998  Eugene Powell was born on December 23, 1908 in Utica, Mississippi, a small town  approximately 25 miles southwest of Jackson in Hinds County.  Shortly thereafter, his   parents Arma and Rosie Powell moved to a plantation, at Lombardy in the Delta, near   Shelby, Mississippi.  While at Lombardy, Eugene began to play guitar at the age of seven.   Together with his half brother Ben on a mandolin, Eugene began to play as a novelty   act at picnics and suppers and for prisoners at Mississippi State Penitentiary.  In 1915,   Eugene's half brother, the late Bennie "Sugar" Wilson, may have been the inspiration  for Eugene to learn the banjo-mandolin too.   The Powell Family, again, moved to Hollandale in Washington county in the early 1920's.  This is when Eugene Powell began his formative years with the Chatmon Family.   The beginning of the musical Mississippi heritage for Eugene Powell was also the  beginning for Charley Patton and Walter Vincson.  They got their musical apprentice-  ship from an ex-slave fiddle player named Henderson Chatmon.   He was the father of the Chatmon Family whose sons formed the group, The   Mississippi Sheiks.  Eugene Powell grew up with the Chatmon Family when they  moved from Bolton, Mississippi - Central Mississippi, to Hollandale in the Delta in   the 1920's.  It was in Hollandale where Eugene Powell's instrumental interplay   began with Henderson Chatmon and his sons Bo, Lonnie, Ty, Harry, Sam, Willie,  Bert, Lamar, Edger and Charlie.  Eugene Powell became a sometime member   and recording member of The Mississippi Sheiks.  Mississippi's most   commercially successful Blues artist.   The Eugene Powell Family and the Chatmon Family worked on the Kelly Drew   Plantation in Hollandale together.  The true professional of the Jackson Blues,  Delta Blues and Forty-Fours were Eugene Powell and his playing partners, the  Chatmons, Richard "Hacksaw" Harney and Ernest "44" Johnson.  Eugene Powell   played many instruments:  banjo, guitar, harmonica, horn, mandolin, violin, and  played lead most of the time when accompanied with another musician.   Eugene Powell's guitar was a Silvertone and he inserted an aluminum resonator  into it like those found on the National guitar.  He also fitted a seventh string,   using the 12 string models as his inspiration.  The extra string was a 'C' an   octave higher than the conventional string.   By the end of the 1940's, Eugene played rarely as new styles and trends   subjugated his abilities and left him unappreciated.   Understandably, Eugene does not have the spark of his earlier playing,   but his Country Delta sophisticated playing style stands out as being one   of the greatest Blues soloists and accompanists of his time.

 

 LINKS

Interview with Matt Block Founder Delta Blues . Com (The Beat Video) Photos and MS Shieks Tribute Delta Blues . Com Bio and Pic