Background
Burks was born on September 17, 1931, near Greenwood, Mississippi, the 14th and youngest child in a family of sharecroppers.
- Photos
- Works
- Photos
- Works
Eddie Burks
Edit ProfileEducation
While he did not perform blues because of his religious beliefs, he often attended clubs on the West Side of Chicago.
Career
After moving to Chicago in 1946 he worked in a steel mill. In addition to his steel mill job, Burks was a minister in the Apostolic faith and had a storefront church, but he switched to playing blues full-time after the riots precipitated by the assassination of Martin Luther King in 1968. He played so often on Maxwell Street Market in the late 1960s and 1970s that he became known as "Jewtown Eddie", after the local name for the area.
During this period he also worked as a sideman with the likes of Eddie Shaw and Jimmy Dawkins.
He released his first single, "Lowdown Dog", in 1977, and this was followed up by two further releases. Following this, his solo career took off, and he released further albums, toured frequently, and gained steady work on the festival circuit.
In 1994 he appeared in the Academy Award nominated documentary Blues Highway. After his 70th birthday his health declined as a result of diabetes, but he continued to play in the Chicago clubs until his death in a car accident near Miller, Indiana on January 27, 2005.
-
Born
-
Died
January 27, 2005 (aged 73) -
Nationality
United States -
Ethnicity