Cootie Stark
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Johnny Miller (December 27, 1927 – April 14, 2005), known as Cootie Stark, was an American Piedmont blues guitarist, singer, and songwriter. His best remembered
recordings A record, recording or records may refer to: An item or collection of data Computing * Record (computer science), a data structure ** Record, or row (database), a set of fields in a database related to one entity ** Boot sector or boot record, re ...
were "Metal Bottoms" and "Sandyland." Stark was known as the "King of the Piedmont Blues.""Doc Rock" (2011)
"The Dead Rock Stars Club 2005 January to June"
''Thedeadrockstarsclub.com''. accessed October 18, 2011


Biography

Stark was born Johnny Miller in
Abbeville, South Carolina Abbeville is a city and county seat of Abbeville County, in the U.S. state of South Carolina. It is located west of Columbia and south of Greenville. Its population was 5,237 at the 2010 census. Settled by French Huguenot settlers, it was n ...
, the son of
sharecropper Sharecropping is a legal arrangement in which a landowner allows a tenant (sharecropper) to use the land in return for a share of the crops produced on that land. Sharecropping is not to be conflated with tenant farming, providing the tenant a ...
s,Dave Peabody, Obituary in '' Juke Blues'' no. 59, 2005, p. 67 and grew up in Anderson County. Stark was given his first guitar by his father at the age of 14, having then relocated to
Greenville, South Carolina Greenville ( ; ) is a city in Greenville County, South Carolina, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 70,720 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of municipalities in South Carolina, sixth-most pop ...
. His poor eyesight meant that he was unable to find regular employment. He began
busking Street performance or busking is the act of performing in public places for gratuity, gratuities. In many countries, the rewards are generally in the form of money but other gratuities such as food, drink or gifts may be given. Street performa ...
on street corners, and learned his art from fellow street performers such as
Peg Leg Sam Arthur Jackson, known as Peg Leg Sam (December 28, 1911 – October 27, 1977) was an American country blues harmonicist, singer and comedian. He recorded "Fox Chase" and "John Henry" and worked in medicine shows. He gained his nickname followin ...
, Pink Anderson and
Josh White Joshua Daniel White (February 11, 1914 – September 5, 1969) was an American singer, guitarist, songwriter, actor and civil rights activist. He also recorded under the names Pinewood Tom and Tippy Barton in the 1930s. White grew up in the Sou ...
plus, particularly in his earliest days, from Baby Tate. He acquired the
nickname A nickname, in some circumstances also known as a sobriquet, or informally a "moniker", is an informal substitute for the proper name of a person, place, or thing, used to express affection, playfulness, contempt, or a particular character trait ...
, Sugar Man, and continued to work his trade as a songster in the area. His performing name of Cootie Stark was an amalgam of a childhood nickname and his grandfather's surname. His eyesight deteriorated until he was legally registered as blind, but Stark continued to perform across the State and beyond, often using the name Blind Johnny Miller. However, by the 1980s, with playing prospects diminishing, Stark settled in Greenville. "By then, the real Piedmont blues was pretty much gone," he stated. "All them guys were dead and gone and I wasn't making no headway." In 1997, when Stark was over 70 years old, he was heard playing
Fats Domino Antoine Caliste Domino Jr. (February 26, 1928 – October 24, 2017), known as Fats Domino, was an American singer-songwriter and pianist. One of the pioneers of rock and roll music, Domino sold more than 65 million records. Born in New Orl ...
songs by Tim Duffy, the founder of the Music Maker Relief Foundation. Their record label released Stark's debut
album An album is a collection of audio recordings (e.g., music) issued on a medium such as compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl (record), audio tape (like 8-track cartridge, 8-track or Cassette tape, cassette), or digital distribution, dig ...
, ''Sugar Man'', in 1999. In 2003, Stark released his second and final album, ''Raw Sugar'', when he was again accompanied on record by
Taj Mahal The Taj Mahal ( ; ; ) is an ivory-white marble mausoleum on the right bank of the river Yamuna in Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India. It was commissioned in 1631 by the fifth Mughal Empire, Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan () to house the tomb of his belo ...
. He received the South Carolina Folk Heritage Award in 2005. Stark died at the age of 77, in Greenville, in April 2005.


Discography


Solo albums


Guest appearances


See also

*
List of Piedmont blues musicians The Piedmont blues (also known as Piedmont fingerstyle) is a type of blues music, characterized by a unique fingerpicking method on the guitar in which a regular, alternating-thumb bassline pattern supports a melody using the treble strings. Th ...


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stark, Cootie 1927 births 2005 deaths American blues guitarists American male guitarists American blues singers Songwriters from South Carolina Singers from South Carolina People from Abbeville, South Carolina Piedmont blues musicians Songster musicians 20th-century American singers 20th-century American guitarists Guitarists from South Carolina 20th-century American male singers American male songwriters 20th-century American songwriters