Leroy Carr
b. 27 March 1905, Nashville, Tennessee, USA, d. 29 April 1935. A self-taught pianist, Carr grew up in Kentucky and Indiana but was on the road working with a travelling circus when still in his teens. In the early '20s he was playing piano, often as an accompanist to singers, mostly in and around Covington, Kentucky. In the mid-20s he partnered Scrapper Blackwell, touring and recording with him. Carr's singing style, a bitter-sweet, poetic way of interpreting the blues, brought a patina of urban refinement to the earthy, rough-cut intensity of the earlier country blues singers. Even though he rarely worked far afield, his recordings of his own compositions, which included Midnight Hour Blues, Hurry Down Sunshine, Blues Before Sunrise and, especially, How Long, How Long Blues, proved enormously influential. Although he died young, Carr's work substantially altered approaches to blues singing and powerful echoes of his innovatory methods can be heard in the work of artists such as Champion Jack Dupree, Cecil Gant, Jimmy Rushing, Otis Spann, Eddie Cleanhead Vinson and T-Bone Walker, who, in their turn, influenced countless R&B and rock ‘n’ roll singers of later generations. An acute alcoholic, Carr died on 29 April 1935.