Albert Luandrew, known as Sunnyland Slim, was an American blues pianist born in the Mississippi Delta and moved to Chicago, helping to make that city a center of postwar blues.
11 Facts About Sunnyland Slim
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Chicago broadcaster and writer Studs Terkel said Sunnyland Slim was "a living piece of our folk history, gallantly and eloquently carrying on in the old tradition".
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Sunnyland Slim was born on a farm in Quitman County, Mississippi, near the unincorporated settlement of Vance.
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Sunnyland Slim moved to Memphis, Tennessee, in 1925, where he performed with many of the popular blues musicians of the day.
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At that time the electric blues was taking shape in Chicago, and through the years Sunnyland Slim played with such musicians as Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Robert Lockwood Jr.
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Sunnyland Slim's voice was loud, and he sang in a declamatory style.
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Sunnyland Slim's first recording was as a singer with Armand "Jump" Jackson's band for Specialty Records in September 1946.
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Sunnyland Slim released one record for RCA Victor, "Illinois Central" backed with "Sweet Lucy Blues", under the name Dr Clayton's Buddy.
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Sunnyland Slim was a recipient of a 1988 National Heritage Fellowship awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts, which is the United States government's highest honor in the folk and traditional arts.
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Sunnyland Slim died in March 1995 in Chicago, after complications from renal failure, at the age of 88.
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Sunnyland Slim recorded on many different record labels over his lengthy career.