Henry Townsend Henry's Worry Blues (1929)

Henry Jesse James "Mule" Townsend was born in 1909 in Shelby, Mississippi. He left home in 1918 due to abuse from his father and settled in St. Louis, Missouri, where he learned to play the guitar.

In addition to being a guitarist, he was also a pianist and singer, starting to record and perform as early as the 1920s.

The nickname "Mule" was given to him because of his "tough" character, or rather, his stubbornness. For example, in St. Louis, he collaborated with some blues greats, including one J.D. Short, with whom he had a violent altercation that involved a gunshot to the balls (after J.D. allegedly lunged at him with a knife).

The mule left us nearly a century old at St. Mary's Ozaukee Hospital in Mequon, Wisconsin, not before having recorded for an impressive nine consecutive decades (from 1929 to 2006), and that’s all…