Wednesday, February 02, 2005
Ernest Withers, the Hardest Working Man in Show Business , picks up the Missouri Honor Medal for Distinguished Service of Journalism from the University of Missouri School of Journalism, an award reserved for the likes of Winston Churchill and Gloria Steinem. This week, Withers will be one of eighteen recipients of the Keeping the Blues Alive Awards from the Blues Foundation.
After getting out of the army in 1946, Ernest Withers took his first photo of a bluesman, Memphis Slim, who was visiting from France and playing on Beale St. "He had a buddy he played with who played so bad they called him 'Slopjaw.' I took the photo for him to send back to Paris…His daddy had seven wives show up at his funeral!" Mr. Withers laughs today. Fifty-eight years later, Withers is going strong, still taking pictures every day and reminiscing about the sights and sounds he has seen and heard in his almost sixty year photography career.
(Read more of Sherman Willmott's capsule retrospective on Mr. Withers in the 2-1-05 Memphis Flyer by linking above)
¶ 2/02/2005 02:26:00 PM
After getting out of the army in 1946, Ernest Withers took his first photo of a bluesman, Memphis Slim, who was visiting from France and playing on Beale St. "He had a buddy he played with who played so bad they called him 'Slopjaw.' I took the photo for him to send back to Paris…His daddy had seven wives show up at his funeral!" Mr. Withers laughs today. Fifty-eight years later, Withers is going strong, still taking pictures every day and reminiscing about the sights and sounds he has seen and heard in his almost sixty year photography career.
(Read more of Sherman Willmott's capsule retrospective on Mr. Withers in the 2-1-05 Memphis Flyer by linking above)
¶ 2/02/2005 02:26:00 PM
