Roosevelt "Booba" Barnes
b. 25 September 1936, Longwood, Mississippi, USA. A self-taught singer, guitarist and harmonica player, Barnes plays ‘unvarnished gut level blues’, strongly influenced by Howlin' Wolf. His first instrument was the harmonica, which he began to play at the age of eight, and he sat in with many of the local blues musicians around Greenville, Mississippi in the '50s. He formed the first band under his own leadership in 1956 or 1957 and started playing guitar in 1960. In 1964 he moved to Chicago, Illinois and stayed there until 1971 when he returned to Greenville, where he has remained until the present day. In 1973, he travelled to Chicago to record as a backing musician with the Jones Brothers: these recordings remain unissued. In 1990 Barnes became the first Mississippi-based performer to record an album for the Rooster Blues label.