Snooky Pryor & Friends - Pitch A Boogie Woogie If It Takes Me All Night Long (2001)

Snooky Pryor's career spanns five decades and he was always the leader of every band with which he ever worked. He was probably the first in Chicago to amplify his harmonica and 'Telephone Blues', his debut record with Moddy Jones, was perhaps the first independent postwar blues release. Pryor was one of the few harmonica players in Chicago in those postwar years who wasn't completely in thrall to John Lee Williamson. None of Snooky's immediate family were musicians, he had no teaching from anybody and he never asked nobody any questions about the harmonica. He learned it all himself. Snooky remembers listening and watching Rice Miller playing the streets of Vance. He learned a lot from guitar player James Scott. He (Scott) instructed me a lot into my music, how to play behind guitars. Snooky left home for Memphis when he was sixteen, and from there to Arkansas and Missouri, playing the streets and houseparties. In the early 1940's he was conscripted into the Army and after his discharge in 1945 he moved to Chicago, playing his amplified harp on Maxwell street. Some time later Snooky teamed up with Floyd Jones and his cousin Moody. One day, Snooky was playing on Sedgwick Street when he was approached by Chester Scales, who ran his own record shop nearby. Scales arranged a recording session and Snooky and Moody recorded 'Telephone Blues' and 'Snooky and Moody's Boogie', released on the Planet label. Scales also recorded Johnny Williams and Johnny Young and Floyd Jones. Snooky & Moody's single was played on the radio and Pryor made a name and now he could sit in with Lonnie Johnson, Big Bill and Memphis Minnie. Snooky joined the musicians union and played club gigs with John Brim, Eddie Taylor, Homesick James and others. Entrepreneur Joe Brown started J.O.B. Records and he talked Snooky into recording. Joined by Leroy Foster on guitar and Moody Jones on bass, he recorded 'Boogy Fool' and 'Raisin' Sand'. Snooky continued to record for Joe Brown throughout the 1950s, apart from singles for Parrot and a Vee-Jay session in 1956. There must have been other chances to record but the blues was changing and other music challenged its hold on public taste, so Snooky's music remained too traditional for recording companies. In the early 1960s Snooky got himself a day-job as a carpenter to support his wife and kids. An article in 1971 in Living Blues renewed interest in Snooky's music. Homesick James took care of his return to music and in 1973 they toured Europe with the American Blues Legends. Snooky recorded an album in the UK for Big Bear but it wasn't until 1987 he made a succesfulll comeback with a recording contract.