Tampa Red

Red lived out his final years in Central Nursing Home, where he died from a heart attack while eating breakfast on the morning of March 19, 1981. According to a newspaper obituary published by Jim O'Neal, his funeral was held at Biggs & Biggs Funeral Home, and he was buried in Mount Glenwood Memory Garden, in the Chicago suburb of Willow Springs.

Tolbert died on December 10 1974, and accounts of Red's past mental problems discouraged friends from taking him into their homes. By January 1975, he was at a state hospital in Chicago.

Red's wife, Frances Whittaker, died on November 21, 1953. The loss was reportedly a great blow to him, and he became an alcoholic. When blues expert Jim O'Neal discovered him on Chicago's South Side in 1974, he was living with his female companion, 81-year-old Effie Tolbert. Red was reportedly in a much worse shape than in his earlier years, and his electric guitar rested under a bed while his National steel guitar had been stolen (it was recovered in a pawn shop in 1994, and eventually sold to the Experience Music Project in Seattle for $85,000).

He was "rediscovered" in the blues revival of the late 1950s, like many other surviving early-recorded blues artists, such as Son House and Skip James. He made his last recordings in 1960.

By the 1940s, Red was playing an electric guitar. In 1942, his "Let Me Play with Your Poodle", was a number 4 hit on Billboard's new "Harlem Hit Parade", a forerunner of the R&B chart. His 1949 recording "When Things Go Wrong with You (It Hurts Me Too)", another R&B hit, was covered by Elmore James.

Red's partnership with Dorsey ended in 1932, but he remained much in demand as a session musician, working with John Lee "Sonny Boy" Williamson, Memphis Minnie, Big Maceo, and many others. He signed with Victor Records in 1934 and remained on their artist roster until 1953. He formed the Chicago Five, a group of session musicians who created what became known as the Bluebird sound, a precursor of the small-group style of later jump blues and rock-and-roll bands. Red was a friend and associate of Big Bill Broonzy and Big Maceo Merriweather. He achieved commercial success and some prosperity. His home became a centre for the blues community, providing rehearsal space, bookings, and lodgings for musicians who arrived in Chicago from the Mississippi Delta as the commercial potential of blues music grew and agricultural employment in the South diminished.

Much of Tampa Red's early recordings were mostly collaborations with Dorsey. The two recorded almost 90 sides, sometimes as the Hokum Boys or, with Frankie Jaxon, as Tampa Red's Hokum Jug Band. In 1928 and 1929, besides making their own records, he and Georgia Tom appeared on recordings by Ma Rainey, Madilyn Davis, Lil Johnson, and female impersonator Frankie "Half Pint" Jaxon.

In 1928, Red became the first black musician to play a National steel-bodied resonator guitar, the loudest and showiest guitar available before amplification, acquiring one in the first year in which they were available. This allowed him to develop his trademark bottleneck style, playing single-string runs, not block chords, which was a precursor of later blues and rock guitar soloing. The National guitar he used was a gold-plated tricone, which was found in Illinois in the 1990s by Randy Clemens, a music shop owner and guitarist, and later sold to the Experience Music Project in Seattle. Red was known as "The Man with the Gold Guitar", and into the 1930s he was billed as "The Guitar Wizard". In 1931, Red recorded "Depression Blues", including the topical lyrics, "If I could tell my troubles, it would give my poor heart ease, but Depression has got me, somebody help me please".

Red was one of the most prolific blues recording artists of his era. It has been estimated that he recorded 335 songs on 78-rpm records, of which 251 were recorded between 1928 and 1942, making him the blues artist with the most recordings during that period. Most of his singles were released before Billboard magazine began tracking blues (and other "race music") in October 1942, and accurate sales records are not available. However, he had four singles that placed in the R&B top ten between 1942 and 1951.

By 1925, having already perfected his slide technique, he had moved to Chicago, Illinois, and began his career as a street musician, adopting the name "Tampa Red", with reference to his childhood home and his light-colored skin. His big break came when he was hired to accompany Ma Rainey. While in Chicago, he met Thomas A. Dorsey, also known as Georgia Tom. Dorsey was an accomplished pianist, composer, and arranger who had performed and recorded with the leading female blues singers of the era, in particular Ma Rainey. It was Dorsey who introduced Red to J. Mayo Williams, the frontman for Paramount Records in Chicago. Williams arranged a recording session for Red, and he began recording in 1928, with "Through Train Blues", although it did not have as much success since it shared the record with Paramount's biggest star at the time, Blind Lemon Jefferson.

Tampa Red was born Hudson Woodbridge in Smithville, Georgia. The date of his birth is uncertain, with Tampa himself giving years varying from 1900 to 1908. The birth date given on his death certificate is January 8, 1904. His parents, John and Elizabeth Woodbridge, died when he was a child, and he moved to Tampa, Florida, where he was raised by his aunt and grandmother and adopted their surname, Whittaker. He emulated his older brother, Eddie, who played the guitar around the Tampa area, and he was especially inspired by an old street musician called Piccolo Pete, who first taught him to play blues licks on the guitar. Red also picked up some knowledge from early recordings of female blues singers like Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Ida Cox. In an interview with Martin Williams, Red told Williams "That [1920] record of "Crazy Blues" by Mamie Smith, it was one of the first blues records ever made. I said to myself, 'I don't know any music, but I can play that.'"

Hudson Whittaker (born Hudson Woodbridge; January 8, 1903 – March 19, 1981), known as Tampa Red, was a Chicago blues musician.