Blues guitarist and singer Luther Allison was born in Arkansas, but like many of his

contemporaries in the rural South, he rose to fame in cities far from his original home.
His style exemplified the soulful blues of the west side of Chicago, Illinois, where he
moved with his family as a child. Later, in 1977, when the popularity of the blues faded in
the United States, he began touring Europe extensively and became an international
star. Born in Widener (St. Francis County) on August 17, 1939, Luther Allison was the
fourteenth of fifteen children, all of whom were musically inclined, born to parents who
were cotton farmers.
He was exposed to gospel music as a young child, although he quickly became
enthralled with the flourishing blues scene in Chicago upon his family’s arrival there in
1951. At age sixteen, he was leading the first of his many bands, one of which was
presciently named the Rolling Stones. His first major breakthrough as a popular solo
artist was his acclaimed performance at the Ann Arbor (Michigan) Blues Festival in
1969.
In 1972, he was one of the few blues performers who ever signed a recording contract
with Detroit’s Motown Records. Allison started touring in Europe almost exclusively in
the late 1970s and settled in Paris in 1984. He was adored in Europe, receiving what
one critic described as “an overdose of respect,” and cut one album, Serious, while in
France—this was released by the Blind Pig label in the U.S. in 1987.
Fifteen years after moving to Europe, Allison returned to America in triumph, and in
1994, he began recording for Chicago’s Alligator Records, an association that led in
1996 and 1997 to his winning five W. C. Handy Awards and fifteen Living Blues Awards.
He released Soul Fixin’ Man in 1994, Blue Streak in 1995, and Reckless, which was
nominated for a Grammy, in 1998. In 1997, at the height of one of the most astonishing
comebacks in blues history, he was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer.
He died on August 12, 1997, at University Hospital in Madison, Wisconsin. The Ruf label
released Hand Me Down My Moonshine, an all-acoustic album with Allison and his son
Bernard, in 1998, and the following year, Alligator Records released Allison’s two-CD
set, Live in Chicago.
==
Luther Allison Biography by Robert R. Jacobson
Born August 17, 1939, in Mayflower, AR;
Died August 12, 1997, in Madison, WI;
Married, wife's name, Fannie Mae (separated);
Children: Bernard; Luther T.; seven stepchildren.
At the time of his death in 1997, Luther Allison was at the very top of the blues world.
The singer and guitarist had received a total of eight W. C. Handy awards over the prior
two years, and was performing to sold-out audiences over the world. He had struggled
for 40 years in semi-obscurity--many of those years spent in European self-exile--to
reach that peak, only to have his career suddenly ended by terminal cancer.

Allison was born on August 17, 1939, in Mayflower, Arkansas, the fourteenth of 15
children. In 1951, fed up with life in the cotton fields of the South, the family moved to
Chicago in search of better opportunities. The family was a musical one. Several of
Allsion's siblings sang in a gospel group called the Southern Travellers. One of his older
brothers, Ollie, soon began working as a guitarist on Chicago's booming South Side
blues scene. Seeking to emulate his brother, Luther took up the guitar himself. By the
middle of his teens, Allison was good enough to sit in with his brother's band on club
dates.
Soon Allison was ready to front his own band, and in 1957 he formed a group called the
Rolling Stones, named after a song by blues great Muddy Waters. The band also
included another Allison brother, Grant. After changing its name to The Four Jivers, the
band quickly became regulars on the Chicago blues club circuit. It was not long before
Allison's fiery guitar work caught the attention of Magic Sam, Freddy King, and other
fixtures of the competitive West Side blues scene.

For the next decade or so, Allison toiled as a sideman for those and other bandleaders.
It was Freddy King who encouraged Allison to start singing. He played supporting roles
during this period with such other blues legends as Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters.
When King started touring nationally, Allison took over his band and his weekly West
Side gig. By the end of the 1950s he was one of the bigger acts on the Chicago blues
scene.
In 1967 Allison gained national attention when his playing was included on a compilation
album released by Delmark Records, called Sweet Home Chicago. He followed that up
with a Delmark album of his own, Love Me Mama, issued in 1969. By this time, Allison
had been more or less tabbed as the "next big blues star" out a generation of hot players
coming out of the West Side. This collection of blooming blues stars, which included Otis
Rush and Buddy Guy, found ways to incorporate a rock and roll sensibility into their
music without sacrificing its blues authenticity.
Meanwhile, Allison had begun taking his band on the road outside of Chicago for the first
time, touring at times with harmonica player Shakey Jake. Allison made huge splashes
at the 1969 and 1970 Ann Arbor Blues Festivals in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and it seemed
only a matter of time before he would become the biggest blues name in years. He
signed a recording contract with Barry Gordy's Motown label. It marked the first time that
Motown, a giant in soul music, had signed a blues artist. Allison recorded three albums
on Motown: Bad News is Coming (1972), Luther's Blues (1974), and Night Life (1976).
Unfortunately, Motown had no idea how to promote blues products, and none of
Allison's albums sold very well. In addition, Allison was unhappy with Motown's
propensity to "overproduce" his work. He preferred to record in a simpler, more "live"
atmosphere.
Disillusioned by the failure of his Motown projects, Allison packed up and moved his
base of operations to Europe, following in the footsteps of earlier blues expatriates such
as Memphis Slim and Champion Jack Dupree. Settling in Paris in 1979, Allison set out
to revitalize his career by concentrating on what he did best--namely putting on fantastic
live shows, in which he exhibited boundless energy, usually exhausting the audience
before losing any steam himself. He continued to record as well, turning out albums on
European labels such as Melodie and Black & Blue, in addition to the occasional U.S.
release on Blind Pig. By the middle of the 1980s, Allison had become arguably the
biggest blues star in Europe. While his star was rising in Europe, however, American
audiences pretty much forgot about him.
As he gained stature in Europe, Allison continued to court younger listeners by
incorporating elements of rock into his music, leading to inevitable comparisons to,
among others, Jimi Hendrix. Allison never seemed to mind the association with rock
artists, noting the historic connection between the two genres. By the late 1980s,
however, Allison was delving back into his hardcore blues roots, combining the hot
guitar licks he had honed over the years with a matured vocal style that captured the
essence of the wise, world- weary bluesman. His 1988 release Serious caught the
attention of the people at Chicago-based Alligator Records.
In 1994 Alligator released Soul Fixin' Man, Allison's first American album in nearly two
decades. The album was a huge hit among blues fans, marking Allison's triumphant
return to his native turf. A writer in Guitar Player applauded the album's "fever and chills
performances," and raved that Allison's "ferocious solos combine the wisdom of a
master storyteller with the elegance of B.B. King, the elasticity of Buddy Guy, and the big
sting of Albert King."
Allison followed up in 1995 with another Alligator album, Blue Streak. Blue Streak not
only solidified Allison's comeback, but put him among the elite few at the very top of the
blues kingdom and earned him five W. C. Handy awards, the most prestigious in the
business for a blues performer. A Washington Post writer called it "a sonic roar as
soulful as his gospel-shout vocals," and the album remained atop the blues charts for 19
weeks. Allison continued to tour tirelessly all over the world, astonishing fans in North
America, Europe, and Japan with the sheer energy of his live shows. Well into his fifties,
nearly 30 years after he made his first recordings, Allison summed up his amazing
reversal of fortune at the 1995 Chicago Blues Festival: "I'm not only back. I'm
unstoppable."
In 1997 Allison released Reckless, which would turn out to be his final album. During a
July performance, Allison left the stage complaining of dizziness and a loss of
coordination. He was taken to the hospital, where he was diagnosed as having
inoperable lung cancer that had already spread to other parts of his body. Told that he
did not have long to live, the two-time reigning "Blues Entertainer of the Year" canceled
the rest of his touring schedule in order to focus on his health. Allison died on August 12,
1997, in Madison Wisconsin. Although his life ended just as his career was reaching its
overdue peak, Allison managed to live just long enough to see his singer/guitarist son
Bernard make his debut album, Born With The Blues. Allison's career was perhaps best
summarized in a Guitar Player review, which observed that Allison "played the blues as
if his life was hanging in the balance."
==
Born in Widener, Arkansas in 1939, Luther Allison (the 14th of 15 musically gifted
children) first connected to the blues at age ten, when he began playing the diddley bow
(a wire attached by nails to a wall with rocks for bridges and a bottle to fret the wire). His
family migrated to Chicago in 1951, and Luther began soaking in the sounds of Muddy
Waters, Sonny Boy Williamson, and Robert Nighthawk.
He was classmates with Muddy Waters' son and occasionally stopped in the Waters'
house to watch the master rehearse. It wasn't until he was 18 already in Chicago for
seven years that Luther began playing blues on a real guitar and jamming with his
brother Ollie's band. By 1957, Allison had dropped out of school and formed a band
called The Rolling Stones. Unhappy with the name, they became The Four Jivers,
gigging all over the West Side of Chicago. Before long, Luther was jamming with the
West Side's best, including Magic Sam, Otis Rush, and Freddie King, who encouraged
Allison to sing.
"That," said Allison, "was my school." When King began to tour nationally in the early
1960s, Allison took over King's band as well as his weekly gigs at Walton's Corner and
became one of the hottest acts on the West Side. For five years, Allison honed his craft.
He moved to California for a year and cut sides with fellow Chicagoans Shakey Jake
Harris and Sunnyland Slim.
He cut his first two songs as a leader on the now-classic Delmark anthology, Sweet
Home Chicago, before releasing his first solo album (also on Delmark), Love Me Mama ,
a record of hard-hitting blues that spoke to the growing rock audience. But even before
his debut album came out, Luther landed a headlining spot at the influential Ann Arbor
Blues Festival in 1969, and went from relative unknown to major blues-rock attraction.
"His guitar riffs seemed to defy the possible," raved John Fishel, the program director of
the festival, who brought Allison back to perform at the following two festivals.
Allison signed with Motown Records in 1972 as the label's only blues act. His three
records for the Gordy subsidiary led to numerous concert dates and both national and
international festival appearances, but domestically, interest in the blues was fading.
After finding instant acceptance in Europe, he was convinced that Paris was the place to
be.
While he gained superstar status in Europe and released a dozen European records, his
presence in the American music scene diminished. With the release of Soul Fixin' Man
in 1994, Allison's first domestic album in 20 years, he announced his return. "Fever and
chills performances," said Guitar Player, "ferocious solos combine the wisdom of a
master storyteller with the elegance of B.B. King, the elasticity of Buddy Guy, and the big
sting of Albert King."
After three mammoth U.S. tours, America once again was paying attention to Luther
Allison. Allison followed up with Blue Streak, and the praise and accolades poured in. "A
sonic roar as soulful as his gospel-shout vocals," raved the Washington Post. "Luther
Allison's latest is nothing short of a masterpiece by a master," reported Blues Revue.
Continued touring brought Allison before raving fans around the world, as he brought his
band from the San Francisco Blues Festival to New York's Central Park Summerstage,
with all stops in between.
With Reckless, Allison reached even greater heights. Guitar World said, "Reckless in the
best sense of the word, dancing on a razor's edge, remaining just this side of out-of-
control. Hard-driving, piercing West Side Chicago single-note leads with a soul base and
a rock edge." Throughout it all, Allison delivered one show-stopping performance after
another. His boundless energy and fierce guitar attack combined to make him a blues
superstar who reached rock fans like no bluesmen since Freddie King and Albert
Collins.
When the news broke that Allison had been diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer in
July of 1997, the blues world was shocked. When he died just four weeks later, they
were devastated. Without a doubt, Luther Allison's death robbed music fans of one of
the most exciting and popular blues performers ever.
With Live In Chicago, Allison lives on, as he tears through the songs with the single-
minded desire to give everything he has to his audience. While listening to the album,
fans can immerse themselves in the explosive power of Luther Allison's music and
experience the redemptive force of his legendary performances.
==