Barbecue Bob

Born Robert Hicks in Georgia in 1902, Barbecue Bob was one of the reigning stars of what were called "race records" in the late '20s. He sang his blues songs in a clear and articulate tenor devoid of the heavier accent of Mississippi singers, and his singing was most often paired with rhythmically hard-driving acoustic 12-string guitar playing. He died of pneumonia at the age of twenty-nine, missing the folk/blues revival of the '60s from which so many of his contemporaries benefitted.