James Cotton

• Born: July 1, 1935
• Birthplace: Tunica, Mississippi
• Died: March 16, 2017
• Place of death: Austin, Texas

American blues singer, harmonica player, and songwriter

Virtuosic blues harmonica player for Muddy Waters, James "Superharp" Cotton contributed to the electrification of Delta blues, paving the way for rhythm and blues and rock and roll.

Member of The James Cotton Blues Band

The Life

Born in the Mississippi Delta in 1935, James Cotton was the youngest of eight children of farmers Mose and Hattie Cotton. Hattie gave her little son a fifteen-cent harmonica, and Cotton listened to Sonny Boy Williamson II (aka Aleck "Rice" Miller) play blues harmonica (or blues harp) on the historic King Biscuit Time radio show. Cotton’s parents had died by the time he was nine years old, so his uncle, Wiley Creen, brought him to Williamson, who informally adopted him and brought him on tour. Cotton got his start playing harmonica on the steps of the juke joints where Williamson was performing, being too young to be allowed inside.

When Williamson moved to Milwaukee in 1950, Cotton played with Howlin’ Wolf and Hubert Sumlin, recording his first songs. In 1952 he began playing on the radio and working as an ice-truck driver. In December, 1954, after hearing Cotton’s recording of "Cotton Crop Blues," Muddy Waters invited Cotton to join his band, replacing Junior Wells. Cotton played with Waters for twelve years, working closely with Waters’s pianist Otis Spann and acquiring a commanding stage presence. He eventually formed his own band to fill in the time between gigs with Waters.

Cotton, his wife Ceola, and their child lived upstairs in Waters’s Chicago house. In 1966 Cotton was shot five times by a deranged fan. After recovering, Cotton left Waters to tour with his own band full time. The James Cotton Blues Band was prolific in the recording studio and in touring. In 1991, after Ceola died, Cotton married Jacklyn Hairston, who served as his manager, and they moved to Austin, Texas. In 1994 Cotton had surgery followed by radiation treatments for throat cancer. Despite his illness, he performed regularly. Polyps on his vocal chords limited his singing, but he remained a highly respected master of the amplified harmonica.

Even as Cotton's health continued to decline, he toured frequently and continued to record. He died in 2017 at the age of eighty-one, due to complications from pneumonia.

The Music

Cotton grew up surrounded by blues music, singing in the fields while he worked. As a protégé of Williamson, he played harmonica on the street and in juke joints. In 1952 he had his own show on Arkansas radio station KWEM. His decades of performing virtuoso blues harmonica earned Cotton the nickname Superharp.

"Cotton Crop Blues." In 1953 legendary music producer Sam Phillips invited Cotton to make his first recordings. Cotton recorded "Straighten Up Baby," "Hold Me in Your Arms," "Oh, Baby," and, in 1954, his classic composition "Cotton Crop Blues." When Waters heard "Cotton Crop Blues," he was moved by Cotton’s virtuosic harmonica playing and biting lyrics. Cotton’s signature piece, "Cotton Crop Blues" is a classic twelve-bar blues in aab form that came to life with his characteristic wailing harmonica style and boisterous voice.

"Got My Mojo Workin’." Cotton suggested to Waters that he record a version of a song composed by Preston Foster and recorded by Ann Cole, "Got My Mojo Workin’." It became one of the Waters band’s best known songs. Perhaps the definitive version was captured on film when Waters played for the first time at the Newport Jazz Festival on July 3, 1960. Cotton plays an exuberant, attacking harp while Waters roars the lyrics. At one point, Waters grabs Cotton to dance a two-step—although a surprised Cotton looks eager to return to his harmonica. When Cotton formed the James Cotton Band in 1966, "Got My Mojo Workin’" became a standard in the band’s repertoire.

James Cotton Band. The band recorded Cut You Loose! in 1967. The title song begins with a haunting bass guitar riff, followed by Cotton’s plaintive singing to his troublesome woman. The Pure Cotton, Cotton in Your Ears, and The James Cotton Blues Band albums that followed featured Cotton’s propulsive, electric blues style with his hard-blowing, explosive harp playing and throaty, rambunctious singing.

"Rocket 88." Cotton’s gritty renditions of the early rock-and-roll tune "Rocket 88" associated him with the song. Cotton, a car lover, made the most of the harmonica’s limited register, blowing the sounds of a train, a car, and a piston engine.

Taking Care of Business and the 1970s. In the 1970s Cotton, like many blues musicians, began playing with rock performers and for rock audiences. Taking Care of Business was infused with a rock sound. The James Cotton Band became an opening act for Janis Joplin. Cotton also opened or sat in with leading rock bands such as the Grateful Dead, Santana, and Led Zeppelin. In 1977 he joined with Waters, Pinetop Perkins, and blues rocker Johnny Winter on tour, live recordings of which were released in 2007 on Breakin’ It Up, Breakin’ It Down. Cotton’s Buddah label records—100% Cotton, High Energy, Live and on the Move—reflect rhythm-and-blues, soul, and rock influences.

1980s and Later. For the Alligator label, Cotton recorded the funk-oriented High Compression as well as Live from Chicago: Mr. Superharp Himself, culled from three days of performances with an eight-piece band in Chicago’s Biddy Mulligan’s. Take Me Back on the Blind Pig label reflected a return to his blues roots; Harp Attack! featured Cotton with three other blues harmonica players. He recorded Live at Antone’s (1988) at Antone’s nightclub in Austin, Texas; the Antone label also released his Mighty Long Time album. Cotton’s 1996 trio recording, Deep in the Blues, won a Grammy Award. Further Grammy nominations came for the albums Giant (2010) and Cotton Mouth Man (2013).

Musical Legacy

Cotton was a vital figure in the postwar Chicago blues wave that electrified and urbanized Delta acoustic blues. Cotton’s blaring, rhythmic harmonica riffs fit well with the added volume and amplification of the electric guitar. Cotton and other Chicago blues artists were progenitors of rhythm and blues and rock and roll.

Following in the footsteps of his mentor Williamson and others such as Sonny Boy Williamson I and Little Walter, Cotton helped establish the harmonica as a vital instrument in an electric blues band. His driving harmonica solos energized such groundbreaking songs as "Cotton Crop Blues," "Rocket 88," and "Got My Mojo Workin’." Cotton popularized the innovative techniques of Chicago blues harpists: microphone amplification combined with varieties of cupped-hand holds to produce moaning and wailing sounds, bending and distorting notes, propulsive rhythms, and cross-harp technique (playing in the second position to accent the low reeds). Cotton’s ferocious singing added to the effect. Later blues harpists Paul Butterfield and Peter Wolf learned directly from Cotton; Boz Scaggs, Bonnie Raitt, Steve Miller, and Mike Bloomfield all acknowledged Cotton as a key influence. Canadian guitarist Sue Foley decided to become a blues musician at the age of fifteen after attending a Cotton concert.

Principal Recordings

albums (with the James Cotton Blues Band): Cut You Loose!, 1967; The James Cotton Blues Band, 1967; Cotton in Your Ears, 1968; Pure Cotton, 1968; Taking Care of Business, 1970; 100% Cotton, 1974; High Energy, 1975; Live and on the Move, 1976; High Compression, 1984; Two Sides of the Blues, 1984; Live from Chicago: Mr. Superharp Himself, 1986; Live at Antone’s, 1988; Take Me Back, 1987; Harp Attack!, 1990; Mighty Long Time, 1991; Living the Blues, 1994; Three Harp Boogie, 1994; Deep in the Blues, 1996; Fire Down Under the Hill, 2000; 35th Anniversary Jam of the James Cotton Blues Band, 2002; Got My Mojo Workin’, 2003; One More Mile, 2002; Baby, Don’t You Tear My Clothes, 2004; Giant, 2010; Cotton Mouth Man, 2013.

Bibliography

Friskics-Warren, Bill. "James Cotton, Blues Harmonica Legend, Dies at 81." The New York Times, 16 Mar.2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/03/16/arts/music/james-cotton-dead-blues-harmonica-great.html. Accessed 27 Oct. 2017.

Gordon, Robert. Can’t Be Satisfied: The Life and Times of Muddy Waters. Boston: Little, Brown, 2002. Cotton supplies much of the account of the Waters band in the 1950s and 1960s.

Hairston, Jacklyn. "Biography." James Cotton: Superharp, 2015, jamescottonsuperharp.com/biography/. Accessed 27 Oct. 2017.

Shadwick, Keith. The Encyclopedia of Jazz and Blues. London: Quantum, 2007. Brief article on Cotton.

Williamson, Nigel. The Rough Guide to the Blues. London: Rough Guides, 2007. In-depth features on blues musicians, including Cotton.