Walter Furry Lewis

Walter Furry Lewis

Source: Smithsonian Folkways

Born on 6 March 1893 in Greenwood, Mississippi, Walter Furry Lewis was a Memphis musician highly acquainted with famous Beale Street. Lewis was entertaining on the street, at parties and in taverns by age fifteen, having received his first guitar from WC Handy. He eventually began traveling, whence he played with various performers including the WC Handy Orchestra, Bessie Smith, Blind Lemon Jefferson and Texas Alexander. Handy had given Lewis his first guitar. It was during these early days that he lost his leg while attempting to hop a freight train in Illinois in 1916 or so, thereafter wearing a prosthetic device.

In 1922 or so Lewis wearied of the road and settled in Memphis, taking a job as a street sweeper which he kept until retirement. He later recorded his first six tracks for the Vocalion label in Chicago on April 20 of 1927 with unknown and now obscure Landers Waller (guitar) and Charles Johnson (mandolin). Five of those takes were issued as 'Rock Island Blues' / 'Everybody's Blues' (#1111), 'Jellyroll' / 'Mr. Furry's Blues' (#1115) and 'Sweet Papa Moan' (#1116). 'The Panic's On' went unreleased. Lewis moved from Vocalion to Victor in 1928, then back to Vocalion for one solitary session in 1929.

Composition: Lewis

Composition: Lewis

Composition: Lewis / Landers Waller / Walter Johnson

Composition: Lewis

Composition: Lewis

Composition: Lewis

Composition: Lewis

Composition: Lewis

Composition: Lewis

Composition: Lewis

Composition: Lewis

Composition: Lewis

Composition: Lewis

Composition: Lewis

Composition: Lewis

Composition: Lewis

The early portion of Lewis' recording career spanned only two and a half years, his last sessions having arrived on 22 September of 1929. Record companies were reluctant to take him on since his records didn't sell well. Henceforth playing music only to entertain himself as he worked at his street cleaning job, he disappeared into obscurity until Harry Smith released 'Anthology of American Folk Music' in 1954 which included Lewis' 'Kassie Jones' of 1928 (elected into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2012). That drew the attention of folklorist, Samuel Charters, who tracked down Lewis in Memphis in 1958. The second portion of Lewis career stretched above twenty years upon recording the 'Furry Lewis' album for Charters in February and October of 1959.

Composition: Lewis

Lewis issued around ten albums since 'Furry Lewis' in 1959. A decade later in October of 1969 he collaborated with Gus Cannon and Bukka White on 'On the Road Again'. In the next decade Lewis' fame grew to rock star proportions. In April of 1970 his profile written by Stanley Booth was featured in 'Playboy Magazine' [Joni Mitchell]. Sometime in 1974 he featured on Johnny Carson's 'Tonight Show'. He appeared in the Burt Reynolds film, 'W.W. and The Dixie Dance Queens', upon its release in May of 1975 [IMDb / Wikipedia]. He performed for large crowds to which most early bluesmen weren't accustomed when he opened for the Rolling Stones in Memphis on 4 July 1975 (51,500 attending) [Rolling Stone] and 4 July 1976 (53,000 attending) [Concert Archives]. A performance in Sweden had drawn an audience of 70,000 (date unidentified). Wirz at American Music traces Lewis to as late as a performance in Memphis on 1 October of 1978 during which he played 'Furry's Blues' and 'Chicken Ain't Nothing But a Bird' toward issue on the album, 'Beale Street Saturday Night'.

Composition: Sleepy John Estes

Composition: Lewis

Composition: Lewis

Composition: Anonymous spiritual

Composition: Babe Wallace

Lewis died of heart failure in Memphis on 14 September 1981 at age 88.