Table of Contents
Is Otis Spann still alive?
Deceased (1930–1970)
Otis Spann/Living or Deceased
What did Otis Spann die from?
Liver cancer
Otis Spann/Cause of death
What year did Otis Spann die?
April 24, 1970
Otis Spann/Date of death
Spann, who recorded several albums a year in the late ’60s, died in Chicago on April 24, 1970. Little Johnnie (also spelled Johnie and Johnny) Jones was, like Spann, a well-liked, in-demand pianist in the Chicago clubs and studios.
It’s sometimes still believed that Spann and Muddy Waters were half-brothers, but this has yet to be established as fact. Muddy confirmed to Jim O’Neal that the two men benevolently referred to each other as ‘my brother,’ probably referring to their close musical and personal relationship.
Who was Muddy Waters piano player?
Pinetop Perkins
A highly influential blues and boogie-woogie pianist, Pinetop Perkins spent over 10 years playing with the legendary Muddy Waters before going on to enjoy widespread acclaim as a solo act. Joe Willie Perkins was born in Belzoni, a small town on the musically fertile Mississippi Delta, in 1913.
Did muddy waters known Robert Johnson?
Muddy Waters, although having met Robert Johnson, never in fact worked with him and admits to being more interested in just listening to the man play. But Delta musicians such as Son House and Johnny Shines recall Johnson with a good deal more certainty, as indeed does St.
Did Elvis have a Southern accent?
Raised in Mississippi and Tennessee, Elvis developed a Southern accent that was quite noticeable when he hit the big time at the age of 21 in 1956. Ralph Gleason of the San Francisco Chronicle called it a “thick southern drawl” and Shirley Phillips of the Arizona Daily Star labeled it a “heavy southern accent.”
Where did Otis Spann live as a child?
Otis Spann was born on March 21, 1930 in Jackson, Mississippi. One of five children, Spann was reared by his stepfather Frank Houston Spann, a preacher, and his mother Josephine Erby. As a youth he heard the blues at house parties and, at an early age, learned the rudiments of keyboard from Friday Ford, a pianist based in nearby Belzoni.
What kind of cancer did Otis Spann have?
Spann died of liver cancer in Chicago in 1970. He was buried in Burr Oak Cemetery, in Alsip, Illinois. His grave was unmarked for almost thirty years, until Steve Salter (president of the Killer Blues Headstone Project) wrote a letter to Blues Revue magazine, saying, “This piano great is lying in an unmarked grave.
How old was Otis Spann when he started playing the piano?
One of five children, Spann began playing the piano at the age of seven, with some instruction from Friday Ford, Frank Spann, and Little Brother Montgomery. By the age of 14, he was playing in bands in the Jackson area. He moved to Chicago in 1946, where he was mentored by Big Maceo Merriweather.
When did Otis Spann record Walking the Blues?
He recorded a session with the guitarist Robert Lockwood, Jr. and vocalist St. Louis Jimmy in New York on August 23, 1960, which was issued on the albums Otis Spann Is the Blues and Walking the Blues. A 1963 session for Storyville Records was recorded in Copenhagen.