Big Daddy Wilson & Mississippi Grave Diggers - Get On Your Knees And Pray (2004)

Big Daddy Wilson was born Wilson Blount in the small town of Edenton, North Carolina. He recalls “Me and my sisters were raised by mom and grandma. We lived a simple life, we went to church every Sunday, school on weekdays. I also worked back then on the tobacco plantation and in the cotton fields. I was a real country boy. I was extremely shy”. He sang in church but never professionally.

Jobs were scarce for a poor black teenager in the south and at the age of sixteen Wilson quit school to join the US Army. He was stationed in Germany but soon became homesick. Soldiers were allowed to go home to get married so he took advantage of the opportunity even though his impending wedding was nonexistent. After outstaying his furlough his mom begged him to return to the military and so he did. Soon afterwards he met a German girl, married and settled in Germany.

Wilson discovered the blues in Germany and began songwriting and jamming whenever he could. He released his debut “Get On Your Knees and Pray” with his band the Mississippi Grave Diggers in 2004.