Big Daddy Wilson (born Adam Wilson Blount, August 19, 1960) is an American

electric Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described b ...

and

soul blues Soul blues is a style of blues music developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s that combines elements of soul music and urban contemporary music. Origin African American singers and musicians who grew up listening to the electric blues by a ...

singer and songwriter. Most of his solo recordings have been released by the German record label, Ruf Records. To date, Wilson has appeared on more than a dozen albums. Wilson has lived in Germany for almost thirty years.

Life and career

The son of John Henry Wilson and Dorothy Lee Blount, Adam Wilson Blount was born in

Edenton, North Carolina Edenton is a town in, and the county seat of, Chowan County, North Carolina, United States, on Albemarle Sound. The population was 4,397 at the 2020 census. Edenton is located in North Carolina's Inner Banks region. In recent years Edenton has ...

, United States. A shy boy, he was raised by his mother and grandmother, and worked in the cotton and tobacco plantations during his childhood and most of his teenage years. Wilson sang in his local church choir, and

gospel Gospel originally meant the Christian message (" the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words a ...

and

country music Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, o ...

from a local radio station was the only music he heard during that time. He left school aged 16 and two years later enrolled in the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...

in 1979, mainly due to job prospects being scarce where he lived. Wilson was stationed in military bases in Germany, and he quickly became homesick. Using the ruse of pretending he was due to be married, the Army sent him back to the United States for a fortnight. Wilson remained for six weeks before his mother urged him to return to the military, which saw him promptly posted back to Germany. In his leisure time, Wilson attended a blues concert and the experience changed his life. He had been writing poems in his spare time, and following an honorable discharge from military service, he remained in Germany and tried to fuse his lyrical ability and singing voice, a rich, warm, low baritone. Using the blues as his base, and inspired by other American blues musicians who had found success in Europe, Wilson overcame his shyness and began singing at venues in his adopted home. Finding acceptance, Wilson travelled further afield finding opportunities across the Continent. After a while Wilson met a German girl, whom he married and wrote a poem about his wife, which became the first solo song he recorded. After five years of working on stage, the Hungarian record label, Crossroad Records, teamed Wilson with another Hungarian product, the Mississippi Grave Diggers (a blues band) to record his first album, ''Get on Your Knees and Pray''. It found some success, being played by radio stations and at military bases in Europe and Asia. His follow up occurred the same year, when he teamed with Doc Fozz (Wolfgang Feld) on ''My Day Will Come''. Wilson used the two albums to spur him on, working on stage and at music festivals, as his fan base began to grow. Some years ago, Big Daddy Wilson informed his interviewer that the reason he wears sunglasses on stage, is down to his shy nature. Another collaboration with Doc Fozz, saw ''Doin' It Right'' being released in 2007. He signed to the German record label, Ruf Records in 2009, which gave him an international breakthrough album with ''Love Is the Key'', which elevated his presence. He recorded with a small backing ensemble, often acoustically managed, and sang his own material. His friend Eric Bibb guested on two songs, "Country Boy" and "

Walk a Mile in My Shoes "Walk a Mile in My Shoes" is a song written by Joe South, who had a hit with it in 1970. South was also producer and arranger of the track and of its B-side, "Shelter." The single was credited to "Joe South and the Believers"; the Believers includ ...

". ''Thumb a Ride'' was the next release in 2011. ''Live in Luxembourg at L'inoui'' (2013) was a live recording, which was sandwiched between two collections released by the French-based DixieFrog label. These were ''I'm Your Man'' and ''Time''. ''I'm Your Man'' was issued in April 2013 and included his own compositions, along with the Eric Bibb penned "Hold The Ladder". ''Time'' came out in April 2015, and moved between acoustic and electric soul blues numbers. It was jointly produced by Big Daddy Wilson, Eric Bibb and Staffan Astner; all of whom co-wrote most of the songs. In 2013, Wilson performed at the Paris Jazz Festival. Wilson noted, as his confidence on stage grew, "My sister came all the way to see me perform and she couldn't believe it. No, that's not my brother. It seems like all my shyness was gone – thanks to my music." Wilson was a featured artist on the Kai Strauss album, ''Getting Personal'', which was released in January 2017. Wilson's next album, ''Neckbone Stew'' (2017), released by Ruf, appeared in blues charts across the globe, which let Wilson appear at some of the most prestigious blues and jazz festivals. His now almost constant touring was combined by Ruf Records, to allow a collaboration with

Vanessa Collier Vanessa N. Collier is an American blues, funk, and soul saxophonist, singer and songwriter. She has been nominated for seven Blues Music Awards and won one of them in 2019 and another in 2020. Her influences include Bonnie Raitt, Norah Jones ...

and Si Cranstoun for the live recording, ''Blues Caravan 2017''. " Unchain My Heart", " Bring It On Home to Me", and " Twistin' the Night Away" were

standards Standard may refer to: Symbols * Colours, standards and guidons, kinds of military signs * Standard (emblem), a type of a large symbol or emblem used for identification Norms, conventions or requirements * Standard (metrology), an object t ...

covered on the ''Blues Caravan 2017'' album. Wilson sang solo on the tracks "Cross Creek Road" and "Walk a Mile in My Shoes". Despite the album's title, it was released in 2018. In addition, Wilson recorded his own live offering, ''Songs from the Road'', which was jointly issued as a DVD and CD. His global touring included dates in Australia, which incorporated a performance at The Blues on Broadbeach Festival. This exposure saw some of Wilson's recordings being released in Australia on ABC Music. In mid-2018, Wilson entered an American recording studio for the first time, to undertake pre-production work, in conjunction with record producer Jim Gaines, guitarist

Laura Chavez Laura Catherine Chavez (born April 3, 1982) is an American blues, soul, and rhythm and blues guitarist, songwriter and record producer. She has worked with many other musicians, including Deborah Coleman, Candye Kane, Dani Wilde, The Mannish Boy ...

, plus bassist Dave Smith. Further recording work took place the

FAME Studios FAME (Florence Alabama Music Enterprises) Studios is a recording studio located at 603 East Avalon Avenue in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, an area of northern Alabama known as the Shoals. Though small and distant from the main recording locations of th ...

Muscle Shoals, Alabama Muscle Shoals is the largest city in Colbert County, Alabama, United States. It is located along the Tennessee River in the northern part of the state and, as of the 2010 census, the population of Muscle Shoals was 13,146. The estimated popul ...

. The album contained 12 tracks of which ten were written by Wilson. ''Deep in My Soul'' was released on April 19, 2019. Wilson was a guest on the Greg Copeland album, ''Brown-Eyed Handsome Man'', issued in 2020.

Discography

Solo albums

Collaboration albums

References

External links