Leonard "Baby Doo" Caston
b. 2 June 1917, Sumrall, near Hattisburg, Mississippi, USA, d. 22 August 1987, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. More than just a blues pianist, Baby Doo Caston was a musician whose range included popular and light classical music. His early influence and mentor was his cousin Alan Weathersby who taught him to play guitar at an early age. After a couple of moves they began playing around the Nachez area and were managed by Leonard's mother Minda. Baby Doo took up the piano around 1936 and moved to Chicago where he heard people like Earl Hines, Big Bill Broonzy and T-Bone Walkerbut was most influenced by Leroy Carr. He played with the Five Breezes and his own group, the Rhythm Rascals Trio, before the war found him on a United States Overseas entertainment tour with Alberta Hunter. He worked through China, Burma, India, Egypt, Africa and Europe, a high spot being a command performance for General's Eisenhower, Montgomery and Zhukov in Frankfurt on Main in 1945. Returning to Chicago he formed the Big Three Trio with Willie Dixonand Ollie Crawford, with whom he recorded for Bullet, Columbia and OKeh as well as working as a soloist (recording an album on his own Hot Shot label) and supporting many blues artists. His final job was a long-standing engagement in Minneapolis where he died of heart failure. His autobiography FROM BLUES TO POP (1974) was written with the aid of Jeff Todd Titon.