Delta blues master Johnny Shines was known as ‘Little Wolf’ in his younger days when he modeled his music after that of Howlin’ Wolf, but he came to be primarily associated with his legendary cohort of the mid-1930s, Robert Johnson. Shines excelled not only in recreating Johnson’s songs but also in writing his own. Although his style often evoked Mississippi, Shines never lived there. He was born in Frayser, Tennessee (now part of Memphis) on April 25, 1915, and spent his youth in Memphis and in Arkansas before moving to Chicago in the 1940s. During his years in Chicago he recorded career some of the most powerful Delta blues of the postwar era, although he started working on construction jobs when the music life failed to support him. With the welfare of his growing family in mind, Shines left the Chicago ghetto to live in Alabama in the 1960s. He continued to give excellent performances, on record and in concert, and paired with another Johnson protege, Robert Lockwood during the 1980s. A stroke hampered his guitar playing although he remained a magnificent vocalist and an astute, insightful conversationalist. Shines died in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, on Apr. 25, 1992. Peter Guralnick wrote in Shines’ funeral program: ‘What distinguished his music is what distinguished the man: a restless spirit of inquiry, a fierce sense of determination, a pride in himself, his family, and his people.’
— Jim O’Neal
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