John Hammond, the blues singer and guitarist who dedicated his life to the preservation and performance of traditional blues music, has died aged 83.
Across more than sixty years of recording and touring, Hammond built a reputation as one of the most authentic interpreters of acoustic blues outside its original Southern roots. Performing variously as John Hammond, John P. Hammond and John Hammond Jr., he remained committed to the raw, stripped-back traditions of Delta and Chicago blues while influencing generations of musicians who followed.Born John Paul Hammond in New York City on November 13, 1942, he was the son of legendary Columbia Records producer and talent scout John Henry Hammond Jr., a towering industry figure credited with championing artists including Billie Holiday, Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen. Despite that formidable musical lineage, Hammond largely forged his own artistic identity, growing up primarily with his mother following his parents’ separation.Inspired as a teenager after hearing Jimmy Reed recordings, Hammond took up guitar in high school and quickly immersed himself in the blues canon. He briefly attended Antioch College in Ohio before leaving to pursue music full-time, relocating to New York’s Greenwich Village during the early 1960s folk and blues revival."When I first became aware of blues music was when my father brought me to hear Big Bill Broonzy in 1949. I was seven years old, and it made a big impression on me – and I always gravitated towards blues music for whatever reason. By the time I was in my early teens, I was a blues fanatic. I never thought that I would ever play an instrument or be a professional player but I mean I loved the music. When I got a guitar, that was it. Solo is, for me, where the art belongs. If you could pull it off solo, you were really doing it."
