Magic Sam (real name Samuel Maghett)

Instrument(s): Guitar, Voice

Life span: Born Feb. 14, 1937, Grenada, MS; Died Dec. 1, 1969, Chicago IL.

Style synopsis: A West-Side blues guitarist of the same graduating class as people like Otis Rush, Sam combined a blazing guitar with a wonderful soulful voice (imagine Sam Cooke with a guitar...) to do some of the best blues to come out of Chicago in the late 60s. His early sides on Cobra, Crash, Chief and Artistic included hits like "All Your Love," "Easy Baby" and "She Belongs To Me." He went on to record a few albums for Delmark that showed the beginnings of a brilliant career that ended up being a major influence on people like Robert Cray. But he died of a heart attack at 32, and we'll never know where Magic Sam might have gone.

Representative Recordings: The quintessential Magic Sam set, and one that should be in any blues fan's collection, is Magic Sam Live (Delmark 645/646). If it weren't for the mediocre sound quality (it was basically taped from a good recorder in the audience), it would probably rank with albums like Live Wire/Blues Power and Live At the Regal among the top live blues guitar albums in history. The first disc is a club set in Chicago in 1963, and the second is his entire set at the Ann Arbor Blues Festival, just before he died. He showed up late, and tore the place apart, alone on a guitar, backed by a bass and a borrowed drummer. His best studio album is either West Side Soul, Delmark 615, or Black Magic, Delmark 620. His early sides are available on dozens of collections; one that collects them all in one place with a decent set of liner notes is Charly 218, Easy Baby. Also, Give Me Time (Delmark 654) is an intimate recording of Sam at home, playing by himself, with his kids in the background.

Contributor: Ken Ficara (ficara@acm.org)

Contributor's Comments: "Sam towers over the West Side like a Colossus He is still revered by his peers: 'Magic Sam? Numero Uno -- Number one,' Lefty Dizz, no mean guitarist himself, will admit." --Norman Darwen

HTML-ized by: Ken Ficara (ficara@acm.org)