I Wanna Boogie - Jimmy Anderson
The son of sharecroppers, Jimmy Anderson was born in 1934 and began playing harmonica at the age of 8. He mastered the instrument with ease, entertaining customers at a friends snowball wagon. “That’s how I started off. There was blues in Natchez at the Cross Key Club, that’s about it,” he said. “No big names travelled through but they did have a band by the name of Earl Lee. They had horns, and played mostly jazz and blues together. “Then I was inspired by Jimmy Reed. I tried to sound like him. I learned the low parts of the harmonica and the ‘squeal’ as they call it. “ Back then we didn’t have TV and the local radio didn’t play the blues. At night I would listen to WDIA out of Memphis and they would play all the old blues by Smokey Hogg, Muddy Waters, Lightnin’Slim, Howlin’Wolf, all sorts of music like that. “We’d get around the radio just like the kids do around the TV today. There was no electricity and the radio was battery operated” Jimmy Anderson moved to Baton Rouge at ...