Snooky Pryor

Biography

James Edward "Snooky×Snooky1989 · Studio albumSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 12 tracks1Broke and Hungry2:332Nine Below Zero3:523Judgment Day4:104Why You Want to Do Me Like That3:405It Hurts Me Too3:156Look What You Doin' to Me2:307Cheatin' and Lyin'3:498Crazy 'Bout My Baby3:309Key to the Highway2:5110That's the Way to Do It3:3811Money and Women3:3412Don't Worry 'Bout Me2:45" Pryor (September 15, 1919 or 1921 – October 18, 2006) was an American Chicago blues harmonica player. He claimed to have pioneered the now-common method of playing amplified harmonica by cupping a small microphone in his hands along with the harmonica, although on his earliest records, in the late 1940s, he did not use this method. In 2023, he was inducted in the Blues Hall of Fame.

Career

Pryor was born in Lambert, Mississippi, United States. He developed a country blues style influenced by Sonny Boy Williamson I (John Lee Williamson) and Sonny Boy Williamson II (Aleck Ford "Rice" Miller). In the mid-1930s, in and around Vance, Mississippi, Pryor played in impromptu gatherings of three or four harmonica players, including Jimmy Rogers, who then lived nearby and had yet to take up playing the guitar. Pryor moved to Chicago around 1940.
While serving in the U.S. Army he would blow bugle calls through a PA system, which led him to experiment with playing the harmonica that way. However, most historians credit the idea to Little Walter. Upon discharge from the Army in 1945, he obtained his own amplifier and began playing harmonica at the outdoor Maxwell Street Market, becoming a regular on the Chicago blues scene.
Pryor recorded some of the first post-war Chicago blues in 1948, including "Telephone Blues" and "Snooky & Moody's 'Boogie'", with the guitarist Moody Jones, and "Stockyard Blues" and "Keep What You Got", with the singer and guitarist Floyd Jones. "Snooky & Moody's 'Boogie'" is of considerable historical significance: Pryor claimed that the harmonica virtuoso Little Walter directly copied the signature riff of Pryor's song in the opening eight bars of his blues harmonica instrumental "Juke," an R&B hit in 1952. This claim is historically questionable at best. During the 1950s, Pryor regularly toured in the South. In 1967, Pryor moved to Ullin, Illinois. He quit music and worked as a carpenter in the late 1960s but was persuaded to make a comeback.
In January 1973 he performed alongside Homesick James with the American Blues Legends '73 tour, which played throughout Europe. On this tour they recorded an album in London, Homesick James & Snooky Pryor×Homesick James & Snooky Pryor1973 · Studio albumSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 11 tracks1Crossroads3:452Nothin' but Trouble3:043Shake Your Money Maker2:464Cross Town4:005Careless Love3:456After You There Won't Be Nobody Else3:577The Woman I Love3:048I Feel Alright3:269Drivin' Dog3:5310She Knows How to Love Me3:3011Homesick Blues Again4:10, for Jim Simpson's label, Big Bear Records, with Pryor also recording a solo album, Shake Your Boogie×Shake Your Boogie1976 · Studio albumSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 10 tracksA1Shake Your Boogie3:23A2Bottle Up & Go4:02A3You Don't Know My Name4:29A4Bluebird Blues4:34A5Can't Love Me & Homesick Blues3:26B1Baby Left Me A Mule To Ride2:56B2Jump & Shout3:50B3Gonna Have A Good Time4:45B4So Sweet4:46B5Crazy 'Bout You3:17.
Pryor appeared on Bob Margolin's 1995 Alligator Records release My Blues and My Guitar.
Blues fans later revived interest in his music, and he resumed recording occasionally until his death in nearby Cape Girardeau, Missouri, at the age of 85, or possibly 87.
Some of his better-known songs are "Judgement Day" (1956), "Crazy 'Bout My Baby" (from Snooky, 1989), "Where Did You Learn to Shake It Like That" (from Tenth Anniversary Anthology, 1989), and "Shake My Hand×Shake My Hand1999 · Studio albumSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 11 tracks1Shake My Hand2:262Work With Me Annie4:163Someday Baby3:044Tomorrow Night2:475Telephone Blues4:306In This Mess3:337Pistol Packin' Mama3:138My Babe4:269Headed South5:4010Jump for Joy3:3111Don't Like to Brag4:40" (1999).
Pryor's son Richard "Rip Lee" Pryor is also a blues musician and performs in and around his hometown of Carbondale, Illinois.

Singles

"Telephone Blues" (A) / Snooky & Moody's "Boogie" (B) (1948), Planet Records; reissued on Old Swing-Master in 1949
"Boogy Fool" (A) / "Raisin' Sand" (B) (1949), JOB
"I'm Getting Tired" (A) / "Going Back on the Road" (B) (1952), JOB
"Crosstown Blues" (A) / "I Want You For Myself" (B) (1953), Parrot
"Cryin' Shame" (A) / "Eighty Nine Ten" (B) (1954), JOB
"Someone to Love Me" (A) / "Judgement Day" (B) (1956), Vee-Jay
"Boogie Twist" (A) / "Uncle Sam Don't Take My Man" (B) (1963), JOB

Albums

Snooky Pryor (1970), Flyright Records FLY LP-100
Homesick James & Snooky Pryor (1973), Virgin Records, London under licence from Big Bear Records, Birmingham
Do It If You Want To (1973), ABC Records, Los Angeles, New York
Snooky Pryor and the Country Blues (1973), Today Records
Shake Your Boogie, (1976), Big Bear Records, Birmingham
Real Fine Boogie, Snooky Pryor and Moody Jones (1980), Flyright Records
Snooky (1989), Blind Pig Records
Back to the Country, Johnny Shines and Snooky Pryor (1991), Blind Pig Records
Snooky Pryor (1991), Paula Records [compilation of early singles and unissued material]
Too Cool to Move (1992), Antone's Records
In This Mess Up to My Chest (1994), Antone's Records
Mind Your Own Business (1996), Antone's Records
Shake My Hand (1999), Blind Pig Records
Double Shot!, Snooky Pryor and Mel Brown (2000), Electro-Fi Records
Super Harps II, with Carey Bell, Lazy Lester, Raful Neal (2001), Telarc Records
Snooky Pryor and His Mississippi Wrecking Crew (2002), Electro-Fi Records
Mojo Ramble (2003), Electro-Fi Records

Appears on

American Blues Legends '73 (1973), Big Bear Records