Tony Hollins (June 25, 1909 – January 1957) was an American blues singer, guitarist and songwriter.

Biography

Hollins is thought to have been born in

Oktibbeha County, Mississippi Oktibbeha County is a county in the east central portion of the U.S. state of Mississippi. As of the 2020 census the population was 51,788. The county seat is Starkville. The county's name is derived from a local Native American word meani ...

, and was raised at Lucky's Plantation. In the 1920s, he dated John Lee Hooker's sister Alice. On visits, he impressed Hooker with his skill on the guitar, helped teach him to play, and gave Hooker his first guitar. For the rest of his life, Hooker regarded Hollins as a formative influence on his style of playing and his career as a musician. Among the songs that Hollins reputedly taught Hooker were versions of " Crawlin' King Snake" and " Catfish Blues". Charles Shaar Murray, ''Boogie Man: The Adventures of John Lee Hooker in the American Twentieth Century'', Canongate Books, 2011
/ref> Hollins primarily worked as a

barber A barber is a person whose occupation is mainly to cut, dress, groom, style and shave men's and boys' hair or beards. A barber's place of work is known as a "barbershop" or a "barber's". Barbershops are also places of social interaction and publi ...

in Clarksdale, Mississippi. He made his first recordings for OKeh Records in

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in 1941, including " Crosscut Saw Blues", "Crawlin' King Snake" and "Traveling Man Blues", both songs later performed by Hooker, in the latter case renamed as "When My Wife Quit Me".Biography by Jason Ankeny, ''Allmusic.com''
Retrieved 20 October 2016 Hollins failed to maintain a career as a musician and returned to Clarksdale. However, he went back to Chicago in the late 1940s, and recorded for

Decca Decca may refer to: Music * Decca Records or Decca Music Group, a record label * Decca Gold, a classical music record label owned by Universal Music Group * Decca Broadway, a musical theater record label * Decca Studios, a recording facility in W ...

with

Sunnyland Slim Albert Luandrew (September 5, 1906March 17, 1995), "Blues pianist and singer Sunnyland Slim was born Albert Luandrew in Vance, Mississippi, September 5, 1906 (most sources say 1907, but the Social Security Death Index and 1920 census data give t ...

in 1951.Gene Tomko, "Tony Hollins", in Edward Komara, Peter Lee, ''The Blues Encyclopedia'', Routledge, 2004, p.450
/ref> He is believed to have died in Clarksdale early in 1957, although one source places his death in Chicago in 1959.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hollins, Tony 1909 births 1957 deaths African-American guitarists African-American male singer-songwriters American blues guitarists American male guitarists Blues musicians from Mississippi Country blues musicians Guitarists from Mississippi 20th-century American guitarists 20th-century African-American male singers Singer-songwriters from Mississippi