Charlie Musslewhite

Charles "Charlie" Douglas Musselwhite (born January 31, 1944) is an American electric blues harmonica player and bandleader, one of the non-black bluesmen who came to prominence in the early 1960s, along with Mike Bloomfield and Paul Butterfield. Though he has often been identified as a "white bluesman" he claims Native American heritage. Musselwhite was reportedly the inspiration for Dan Aykroyd's character in the Blues Brothers

Musselwhite was born in Kosciusko, Mississippi.  He has said that he is of Choctaw descent, and he was born in a region originally inhabited by the Choctaw. However, in a 2005 interview, he said his mother had told him he was actually Cherokee. 

His family considered it normal to play music, with his father playing guitar and harmonica, his mother playing piano, and a relative who was a one-man band. At the age of three, Musselwhite moved to Memphis, Tennessee. When he was a teenager, Memphis experienced the period when rockabilly, western swing, and electric blues and other forms of African American music were combining to give birth to rock and roll. Musselwhite supported himself by digging ditches, laying concrete and running moonshine in a 1950 Lincoln automobile. This was Musselwhite's school for music as well as life, and he acquired the nickname "Memphis Charlie."

In true bluesman fashion, Musselwhite took off in search of the rumored "big-paying factory jobs" up the "Hillbilly Highway", the Highway 51 to Chicago, where he continued his education on the South Side. Musselwhite immersed himself completely in the musical life, living in the basement of Jazz Record Mart (the record store operated by Delmark Records) with Big Joe Williams and working as a driver for an exterminator, which allowed him to observe what was happening around the city's clubs and bars. He spent his time hanging out at the Jazz Record Mart and the nearby bar, Mr. Joe's, with the city's blues musicians, and sitting in with Big Joe Williams and others playing for tips. There he forged a lifelong friendship with John Lee Hooker; though Hooker lived in Detroit, Michigan, the two often visited each other, and Hooker served as best man at Musselwhite's third marriage. 

In time, Musselwhite led his own blues band and released the legendary Stand Back! Here Comes Charley Musselwhite's Southside Band album in 1966 on Vanguard Records to immediate and great success.  He took advantage of the clout this album gave him to move to San Francisco, where, instead of being one of many competing blues acts, he held court as the king of the blues in the exploding countercultural music scene, an exotic and gritty figure to the flower children. Musselwhite even convinced Hooker to move out to California.

Since then, Musselwhite has released over 20 albums, as well as guesting on albums by many other musicians, such as Bonnie Raitt's Longing in Their Hearts and The Blind Boys of Alabama's Spirit of the Century, both winners of Grammy awards. He also appeared on Tom Waits' Mule Variations and INXS' Suicide Blonde. He himself has won 14 W. C. Handy Awards and six Grammy nominations, as well as Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Monterey Blues Festival and the San Javier Jazz Festival in San Javier, Spain, and the Mississippi Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts.

In 1990 Musselwhite signed with Alligator Records, a step that led to a resurgence of his career.

In 1998, Musselwhite appeared in the film Blues Brothers 2000. He provided the harmonica position in the super-ensemble The Louisiana Gator Boys.

Musselwhite believes the key to his musical success was finding a style where he could express himself. He has said, "I only know one tune, and I play it faster or slower, or I change the key, but it’s just the one tune I’ve ever played in my life. It’s all I know." 

Musselwhite lost both of his elderly parents in December 2005, in separate incidents. His mother, Ruth Maxine Musselwhite, was murdered. 

Musselwhite joined the 10th annual Independent Music Awards judging panel to assist independent musicians' careers. He was also a judge for the 7th and 9th Independent Music Awards. 

Charlie Musselwhite was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 2010. 

In 2012, Musselwhite teamed up with Ben Harper to record the album Get Up!, which was released in January of 2013. In January 2014, the album won a Grammy Award for Best Blues Album.

In 2014, he won a Blues Music Award in the 'Best Instrumentalist – Harmonicist' category

(Charlie Musselwhite at Riverfront Blues Festival in Delaware 2010)