Robert Lockwood Jr., 1915-2006

Robert Lockwood Jr., the legendary Mississippi Delta bluesman who learned to play guitar from Robert Johnson and helped create electric blues, died of respiratory failure on November 21st in Cleveland. He was ninety-one. "He was one of the best that ever did it," says Buddy Guy. "He taught us everything. People like that come along once in a lifetime."

In the early 1950s, Lockwood became a session guitarist for Chess Records, where he played on hit records by Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf and Little Walter, among others. His electrified, jazzy version of Delta-blues riffs became the backbone of Chicago blues, which, in turn, provided the foundation for R&B and rock & roll. "His name wasn't on the records like Muddy Waters and them, but he had a lot to do with the Chicago sound," says Guy, who recorded for Chess in the 1960s. "When I came to Chicago forty-nine years ago, I find out Robert was in eighty percent of those early sessions."

Lockwood was one of the last surviving connections to Johnson, who died in 1938. Lockwood's mother and Johnson dated for more than a decade, and at age twelve, Lockwood — who already knew how to play the organ — was drawn to the hypnotic sound of Johnson's guitar. "When I seen what Robert was doing, I said, 'That's what I want to do,'" Lockwood told Rolling Stone in an interview this year. "I knew I had never heard nothing like it, and I knew it sounded real good."

The young guitarist followed in Johnson's footsteps, playing juke joints throughout the South and appearing alongside harmonica virtuoso Sonny Boy Williamson on the famous blues radio show King Biscuit Time, often emphasizing the legacy by calling himself Robert Jr. Lockwood. The show made Lockwood a guitar hero across the South — and a key influence on a generation of blues guitarists, including a young B.B. King, who sought out Lockwood to be his teacher.

Lockwood continued to tour the world and record albums until he died, and he was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1989. Earlier this year, during an appearance at B.B. King Blues Club in New York, he expressed anger that he never received the respect and royalties he felt he deserved. "I been fucked out of so much money," the notoriously prickly bluesman said. "I ain't no millionaire. I'm the biggest legend you've ever seen, and I don't have $100,000." Despite his bitterness, he never thought about hanging up his ax. "I don't know whether I've gotten better or worse, but I keep writing," he said. "I've been playing all my life. It's all I do."