Sam Myers

{{for|the Australian rugby player|Sam Myers (rugby union)}} {{Short description|American musician (born 1936)}} {{Use mdy dates|date=December 2019}} {{More citations needed|date=November 2008}} {{Infobox musical artist  | name = Sam Myers | image = Sam Myers.jpg | caption = Myers in concert, 2006 | image_size = 240px | landscape = | background = solo_singer | birth_name = Samuel Joseph Myers | alias = | birth_date = {{birth date|1936|02|19|mf=y}} | birth_place = Laurel, Mississippi, United States | death_date = {{death date and age|2006|07|17|1936|02|19}} | death_place = Dallas, Texas, United States | origin = | instrument = Vocalist, drums, blues harp | genre = Blues | occupation = Musician, songwriter | years_active = | label = | website = {{URL|www.sweetsammyers.com}} }}

'''Samuel Joseph Myers''' (February 19, 1936 – July 17, 2006)<ref name="Dead"/> was an American blues musician and songwriter. He was an accompanist on dozens of recordings by blues artists over five decades. He began his career as a drummer for Elmore James but was most famous as a blues vocalist and blues harp player. For nearly two decades he was the featured vocalist for Anson Funderburgh & the Rockets.<ref name="AMG">{{cite web|author=Dahl, Bill |url=http://www.allmusic.com/artist/sam-myers-mn0000240619 |title=Sam Myers: Biography |website=AllMusic |access-date=July 27, 2015}}</ref>

==Biography== Myers was born in Laurel, Mississippi, United States.<ref name="LarkinBlues">{{cite book|title=The Guinness Who's Who of Blues|editor=Colin Larkin|publisher=Guinness Publishing|date=1995|edition=Second|isbn=0-85112-673-1|pages=277/8}}</ref> He acquired juvenile cataracts at age seven and was left legally blind for the rest of his life, despite corrective surgery.<ref name="AMG"/> He could make out shapes and shadows, but could not read print at all; he was taught Braille.<ref name="Book">{{cite book|author=Myers, Sam |title=The Blues Is My Story|isbn=978-1578068968|publisher=University Press of Mississippi|location=Jackson|date=2006}}</ref>

He acquired an interest in music while a schoolboy in Jackson, Mississippi, and became skilled enough at playing the trumpet and drums that he received a nondegree scholarship from the American Conservatory of Music (formerly the American Conservatory School of Music) in Chicago. Myers attended school by day and at night frequented the nightclubs of the South Side.<ref name="AMG"/>

There he met and was sitting in with Jimmy Rogers, Muddy Waters, Howling Wolf, Little Walter, Hound Dog Taylor, Robert Lockwood, Jr., and Elmore James.<ref name="LarkinBlues"/> Myers played drums with Elmore James on a fairly steady basis from 1952 until James's death, in 1963, and is credited on many of James's historic recordings for Chess Records.<ref name="LarkinBlues"/> In 1956, Myers wrote and recorded what was to be his most famous single, "Sleeping in the Ground",<ref name="AMG"/> a song that has been covered by Blind Faith, Eric Clapton, Robert Cray, and many other blues artists; it was also featured on Bob Dylan's ''Theme Time Radio Hour'' show on "Sleep".{{citation needed|date=January 2018}}

From the early 1960s until 1986, Myers worked clubs in and around Jackson and across the South in the (formerly) racially segregated string of venues known as the Chitlin' Circuit.<ref name="LarkinBlues"/> He also toured the world with Sylvia Embry and the Mississippi All-Stars Blues Band.<ref name="AMG"/>

In 1986, Myers met Anson Funderburgh, from Plano, Texas, and joined his band, The Rockets.<ref name="AMG"/> Myers toured all over the US and the world with the Rockets, enjoying a partnership that endured until the time of his death, from complications due to surgery for throat cancer, on July 17, 2006, in Dallas, Texas.<ref name="Dead">{{cite web|author=Doc Rock|url=http://thedeadrockstarsclub.com/2006b.html|title=The Dead Rock Stars Club 2006 July to December|website=Thedeadrockstarsclub.com|access-date=July 27, 2015}}</ref> Just before Myers died, he toured as a solo artist in Sweden, Norway and Denmark, with the Swedish band Bloosblasters.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bloosblasters.se|title=Bloosblasters: Bloosblasters är ett genuint liveband|website=Bloosblasters.se|date=July 14, 2011|access-date=July 27, 2015|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20150801044926/http://www.bloosblasters.se/|archivedate=August 1, 2015}}</ref>

==Legacy== That same year, the University Press of Mississippi published Myers's autobiography, ''Sam Myers: The Blues is My Story''.<ref name="Book"/> The writer Jeff Horton, whose work has appeared in ''Blues Revue'' and ''Southwest Blues'', chronicled Myers's history and delved into his memories of life on the road.{{citation needed|date=January 2018}}

==Awards== Myers and the Rockets collectively won nine W. C. Handy Awards, including three awards in the category Band of the Year and the 2004 award for Best Traditional Album of the Year. In 2005, Myers's album ''Coming from the Old School'' was nominated in the category Traditional Blues Album of the Year.<ref>[http://www.phoenixfm.com/digitalblues.php ] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051227024625/http://www.phoenixfm.com/digitalblues.php |date=December 27, 2005 }}</ref>

In January 2000, Myers was inducted into the Farish Street Walk of Fame in Jackson, Mississippi, an honor he shares with Dorothy Moore and Sonny Boy Williamson II. In 2006, just months before Myers died, the Governor of Mississippi presented him with the Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts, and he was named the state's Blues Ambassador by the Mississippi Arts Commission.

==References== {{Reflist}}

==External links== *[http://www.mnblues.com/profile/anson-pf99.html Mnblues.com article]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Myers, Sam}} Category:1936 births Category:2006 deaths Category:American blues singers Category:American blues harmonica players Category:Blues musicians from Mississippi Category:People from Laurel, Mississippi Category:Ace Records (United States) artists Category:Black Top Records artists Category:Harmonica blues musicians Category:Deaths from esophageal cancer in Texas Category:American session musicians Category:20th-century African-American male singers Category:20th-century American male singers Category:20th-century American singers