Born James Rachell, his career as a performer spanned nearly seventy years, and was often teamed with the guitarist and singer Sleepy John Estes. He grew up in Brownsville, Tennessee, but in 1958 moved north to Indianapolis during a revival in old blues music. He recorded for Delmark Records and Blue Goose Records. Though a capable guitarist and singer, he was better known as a master of the blues mandolin; he had bought his first mandolin at age 8, with a pig his family had given him to raise. "She Caught the Katy," which he wrote with Taj Mahal, is considered a blues standard
In his later years he appeared in filmmaker Terry Zwigoff's documentary about fellow musician Howard Armstrong, and was a featured performer with John Sebastian and the J-Band.
By the mid 1990s, Henry Townsend and his one-time collaborator Rachell were the only active blues artists whose performing lives stretched back to the 1920s. In later years he suffered from arthritis which shortened his playing sessions, though he still recorded an album just before his death, Too Hot For the Devil."
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