Robert Pete Williams › Similar Artists

Furry Lewis - 100% match to Robert Pete Williams

Walter Lewis, 6 March 1893, Greenwood, Mississippi, USA, d. 14 September 1981, Memphis, Tennessee, USA. Furry Lewis was a songster, a blues musician, a humorist and an all-round entertainer. Raised in the country, he picked up the guitar at an early age and moved into Memphis around 1900 where he busked on the streets. After he ran away from home, he had experience working o Read more

Frank Stokes - 74% match to Robert Pete Williams

1 January 1888, Whitehaven, Tennessee, USA, d. 12 September 1955, Memphis, Tennessee, USA. Stokes was raised in Mississippi, taking up the guitar early in life. He worked on medicine shows, and in the streets of Memphis in the bands of Will Batts and Jack Kelly. By 1927, when Stokes and his fellow guitarist Dan Sane made their first records as the Beale Street Sheiks, they w Read more

Reverend Gary Davis - 65% match to Robert Pete Williams

30 April 1896, Laurens, South Carolina, USA, d. 5 May 1972, Hammonton, New Jersey, USA. This highly accomplished guitarist was self-taught from the age of six. Partially blind from an early age, he lost his sight during his late twenties. During the Depression years, he worked as a street singer in North Carolina, playing a formidable repertoire of spirituals, rags, marches Read more

Sleepy John Estes - 62% match to Robert Pete Williams

John Adams Estes, 25 January 1899, Ripley, Tennessee, USA, d. 5 June 1977, Brownsville, Tennessee, USA. This influential blues singer first performed at local house-parties while in his early teens. In 1916 he began working with mandolin player Yank Rachell, a partnership that was revived several times throughout their respective careers. It was also during this formative pe Read more

Big Joe Williams - 56% match to Robert Pete Williams

Joe Lee Williams, 16 October 1903, Crawford, Mississippi, USA, d. 17 December 1982, Macon, Mississippi, USA. Big Joe Williams was one of the most important blues singers to have recorded and also one whose life conforms almost exactly to the stereotyped pattern of how a ‘country’ blues singer should live. He was of partial Red Indian stock, his father being ‘R Read more

Kenny Brown - 55% match to Robert Pete Williams

5 July 1953, Selma, Alabama, USA. Raised in northern Mississippi’s hill country, as a child Brown absorbed the region’s rich musical heritage. Largely self-taught on guitar, his guitar-playing neighbour, the under-recorded bluesman Joe Callicott, gave him encouragement and coaching. At the start of the 70s, Brown, who still had a day job in the construction industr Read more

Mississippi Sheiks - 54% match to Robert Pete Williams

This musical combination flourished between 1930 and 1935, during which time they recorded more than 80 tracks for various ‘race’ labels. The Sheiks was a string band made up of members and friends of the Chatmon family, and included Lonnie Chatmon aka Lonnie Chatman/Lonnie Carter (guitar/violin), Sam Chatmon aka Sam Chatman/Sam Carter (10 January 1897, Bolton, Mis Read more

Blind Boy Fuller - 52% match to Robert Pete Williams

Fulton Allen, 1908, Wadesboro, North Carolina, USA, d. 13 February 1941, USA. One of a large family, Fuller learned to play the guitar as a child and had begun a life as a transient singer when he was blinded, either through disease or when lye water was thrown in his face. By the late 20s he was well known throughout North Carolina and Virginia, playing and singing at count Read more

Mississippi Fred McDowell - 50% match to Robert Pete Williams

12 January 1904, Rossville, Tennessee, USA, d. 3 July 1972, Memphis, Tennessee, USA. A self-taught guitarist, McDowell garnered his early reputation in the Memphis area with appearances at private parties, picnics and dances. He later moved to Como, Mississippi, and was employed as a farmer until discovered by field researcher Alan Lomax in 1959. Sessions for Atlantic Record Read more

T-Model Ford - 50% match to Robert Pete Williams

Mance Lipscomb - 49% match to Robert Pete Williams

9 April 1895, Navasota, Texas, USA, d. 30 January 1976, Navasota, Texas, USA. The son of a former slave and professional fiddle player, Lipscomb initially learned that instrument and later the guitar. For many years he played on a solely local basis, while working as a farmer, and only made his first recordings at the age of 65, in 1960. Over the following 15 years, he made Read more

Bukka White - 48% match to Robert Pete Williams

Booker T. Washington White, 12 November 1906, Houston, Mississippi, USA, d. 26 February 1977, Memphis, Tennessee, USA. White learned guitar and piano in his teens, and hoboed from 1921, playing blues with artists such as George ‘Bullet’ Williams. In the mid-30s White was a boxer and baseball pitcher. He recorded for Victor Records in 1930, a largely unissued sessio Read more

CeDell Davis - 48% match to Robert Pete Williams

Ellis Davis, 9 June 1927, Helena, Arkansas, USA. An excellent slide guitar and harmonica player, the crippling effects of childhood polio denied Davis the full use of his hands. He adapted his style to use a butter knife for a slide. Davis began playing around the Mississippi Delta, performing briefly as a member of the King Biscuits Time entertainers in the early 50s with S Read more

Pink Anderson - 48% match to Robert Pete Williams

Pinkney Anderson, 12 February 1900, Laurens, South Carolina, USA, d. 12 October 1974, Spartanburg, South Carolina, USA. For much of his life, Anderson was Spartanburg’s most famous songster and medicine show huckster. He was 10 when he first learned to play the guitar in open tuning. He also earned money as a buck dancer on the streets of Laurens. In 1917 he joined  Read more

Tampa Red - 46% match to Robert Pete Williams

Hudson Woodbridge aka Whittaker, 8 January 1904, Smithville, Georgia, USA, d. 19 March 1981, Chicago, Illinois, USA. Tampa Red was raised in Tampa, Florida, by his grandmother Whittaker’s family, hence his nickname. By the time of his 1928 recording debut for Vocalion Records, he had developed the clear, precise bottleneck blues guitar style that earned him his billing, Read more