1. EachPod

George Higgs - Rainy Day Blues, Rueben

Author
backalleyblues
Published
Mon 25 Sep 2006
Episode Link
https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/backalleyblues/episodes/2006-09-25T14_53_10-07_00

George Higgs was born in 1930 in a farming community in Edgecombe County near Speed, North Carolina ("a slow town with a fast name" as he is fond of saying.) He learned to play the harmonica as a child from his father, Jesse Higgs, who enjoyed playing favorite spirituals and folk tunes at home during his spare time. George got to catch the medicine showman and harmonica player Peg Leg Sam playing locally in Rocky Mount during the tobacco market season and he made a lasting impression on the young harp player. He was later attracted to the guitar as a teenager and reluctantly sold a favorite squirrel dog to a neighbor to raise funds to purchase his first. As a result of their close proximity the dog spent more time at George's home than at his new owner's, so he got to have the guitar and keep the company of his dog.

Acoustic Piedmont blues by George Higgs, a North Carolinian, who was inspired to take up the harmonica as a child after hearing Deford Bailey on the radio and seeing Peg Leg Sam at medicine shows and then learned to play guitar as a teenager.

f you could wrap Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee into one package, it would probably look like George Higgs. Not only does Higgs play blues on the guitar, but he also is an artist on the harmonica. While his songs are in the Piedmont Blues tradition, they have the melancholy flavor of Mississippi Delta blues. Born in 1930 on a farm near Tarboro, he learned the skills of farming from his father and later learned carpentry. As a child, he would listen to his father play spirituals, and "Cryin' Holy Unto the Lord" on his father's harp led him to begin thinking of following his father's model.

George Higgs Rainy day blues

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