Babe Stovall

Jewell Stovall, better known as Babe Stovall (October 7 1907 — September 21 1974), was a US-american blues musician (singer/guitarist).

Stovall was born in Tylertown, Mississippi in 1907, the youngest of 11 children (thus his nickname "Babe"). His guitar playing style was influenced by Tommy Johnson, whom he had met in Mississippi around 1930. In the mid 1950s he went to New Orleans, where he entertained college students, hippies, tourists, artists and locals on the streets and in the cafes and art galleries of the French Quarter until his death in 1974.

It has been thought that Babe Stovall was the inspiration of the song, Mr. Bojangles, by Jerry Jeff Walker, who met Babe in New Orleans about 1968. However in his autobiography 'Gypsy Songman', Walker makes it clear the song Mr Bojangles was about an obscure alcoholic but talented white tap-dancing drifter he met while in the jail cells in New Orleans. In an interview with BBC Radio 4 in August 2008, Walker pointed out that at the time the jail cells were segregated along color lines, so his influence could not have been black.

External links

* [http://www.wirz.de/music/stovall.htm Illustrated Babe Stovall discography]