The Suffering of Light Alex Webb

Boogie Bill Webb fused the down-home country blues of his native Mississippi with the hothouse R&B of his adopted New Orleans to create an idiosyncratic sound unique in the annals of Southern music. Born March 24, 1924, in Jackson, MS, Webb received his first guitar a cigar box with strings made of screen wire at the age of eight; his style was most profoundly influenced by local bluesman Tommy Johnson, an entertainment fixture at the myriad fish-fry dinners organized by Webb's mother.