{{Short description|American writer (1935–2024)}} '''Dick Waterman''' (July 14, 1935 – January 26, 2024) was an American writer, promoter and photographer who was influential in the development and recording of the blues from the 1960s.
==Life and career== Dick Waterman was born in Plymouth, Massachusetts, on July 14, 1935.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/08/arts/music/dick-waterman-dead.html|title=Dick Waterman, Promoter and Photographer of the Blues, Dies at 88|newspaper=The New York Times|access-date=November 7, 2025}}</ref> He studied journalism at Boston University in the 1950s.<ref name="Mmone">{{Cite web|url=https://www.mmone.org/dick-waterman/|title=Dick Waterman|first=Stephen|last=Crafts|website=Mmone.org|date=May 2, 2023|access-date=November 7, 2025}}</ref> He moved on to write for ''Broadside Magazine'' and later became its feature editor.<ref name="Mmone"/> In 1963 he began to promote local shows with blues artists, including Mississippi John Hurt, Booker "Bukka" White and Mississippi Fred McDowell.<ref name="Mmone"/> In 1964 he went to Mississippi on a quest that eventually led to his "rediscovery" of the blues singer Son House.<ref name=folklife>{{cite web|url=http://loc.gov/folklife/events/BotkinArchives/2004thru2005PDFandVideo/WatermanFlyer.html |title=Botkin Lecture Flyer: Between Midnight and Day (The American Folklife Center, Library of Congress) |website=Loc.gov |date= |access-date=2013-12-07}}</ref><ref name="oxford">[http://www.theoxfordenterprise.com/news_insert.htm Sunday alcohol sales high on Oxford agenda] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101208222908/http://www.theoxfordenterprise.com/news_insert.htm|date=December 8, 2010}}</ref>
Following this, he founded Avalon Productions, the first booking agency specifically formed to represent blues artists.<ref name="Mmone"/> Within a few years, he was representing House, White, Hurt, Skip James, Sam "Lightnin'" Hopkins, Arthur Crudup, Junior Wells, J. B. Hutto, and many others.<ref name="Mmone"/> He also promoted concerts by folk and rock acts in the Boston area. In the late 1960s he met a young female guitarist and singer named Bonnie Raitt and encouraged her to begin what has become a long, fruitful music career.<ref name=folklife/><ref name= oxford/>
As the older blues artists died, Waterman's responsibilities shifted to care of their estates and providing for their heirs.<ref name="Mmone"/> He moved to Oxford, Mississippi in the 1980s and began a second career publishing the photographs of blues, folk, country and jazz artists that he had been taking since the early 1960s.<ref name="Mmone"/> His book ''Between Midnight and Day: The Last Unpublished Blues Archive'' contains about 100 of his photographs from the 1960s onwards.<ref name=folklife/>
In 1993, Waterman was instrumental in placing a new headstone on the grave of Mississippi Fred McDowell with funding from Bonnie Raitt through the Mount Zion Memorial Fund.<ref name="Mmone"/> Waterman delivered a tribute to McDowell, an early mentor of younger musicians including Raitt, at the dedication ceremony on August 6, 1993, in Como, Mississippi.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.smokestacklightnin.com/Bios/Mississippi%20Fred%20McDowell.htm |title=Mississippi Fred McDowell |website=Smokestacklightnin.com |date= |access-date=2013-12-07}}</ref>
In 2000, he was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame, as one of the first non-performers to be so honored.<ref>{{cite web|author= |url=http://musicguy247.typepad.com/my-blog/dick-waterman-blues-hall-of-fame/ |title=Musicguy247: Dick Waterman - Blues Hall of Fame |website=Musicguy247.typepad.com |date= |access-date=2015-08-16}}</ref> In 2014 in Memphis he received a Keeping the Blues Alive award for Photography;<ref name="Mmone"/> in October 2017 he received a Brass Note on Beale Street in Memphis.<ref>Tammy L. Turner, ''Dick Waterman: A Life in Blues'' (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi), 2019</ref>
Waterman died on January 26, 2024, at the age of 88.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Smith |first1=Harrison |title=Dick Waterman, a steward and chronicler of the blues, dies at 88 |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2024/02/01/dick-waterman-dead/ |access-date=4 February 2024 |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=1 February 2024}}</ref> The cause of death was congestive heart failure.<ref name="Mmone"/>
==References== {{Reflist}}
==Books and articles== * Turner, Tammy L. ''Dick Waterman: A Life in Blues''. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2019
==External links== *[http://www.dickwaterman.com/ Dick Waterman website]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Waterman, Dick}} Category:1935 births Category:2024 deaths Category:Concert photographers Category:Photographers from Massachusetts Category:Photographers from Mississippi Category:People from Plymouth, Massachusetts Category:20th-century American photographers