Dick Waterman
Template:Short description Dick Waterman (July 14, 1935 – January 26, 2024) was an American writer, promoter and photographer who was influential in the development and recording of the blues from the 1960s.
Life and career
Dick Waterman was born in Plymouth, Massachusetts, on July 14, 1935.[1] He studied journalism at Boston University in the 1950s.[2] He moved on to write for Broadside Magazine and later became its feature editor.[2] In 1963 he began to promote local shows with blues artists, including Mississippi John Hurt, Booker "Bukka" White and Mississippi Fred McDowell.[2] In 1964 he went to Mississippi on a quest that eventually led to his "rediscovery" of the blues singer Son House.[3][4]
Following this, he founded Avalon Productions, the first booking agency specifically formed to represent blues artists.[2] Within a few years, he was representing House, White, Hurt, Skip James, Sam "Lightnin'" Hopkins, Arthur Crudup, Junior Wells, J. B. Hutto, and many others.[2] He also promoted concerts by folk and rock acts in the Boston area. In the late 1960s he met a young female guitarist and singer named Bonnie Raitt and encouraged her to begin what has become a long, fruitful music career.[3][4]
As the older blues artists died, Waterman's responsibilities shifted to care of their estates and providing for their heirs.[2] He moved to Oxford, Mississippi in the 1980s and began a second career publishing the photographs of blues, folk, country and jazz artists that he had been taking since the early 1960s.[2] His book Between Midnight and Day: The Last Unpublished Blues Archive contains about 100 of his photographs from the 1960s onwards.[3]
In 1993, Waterman was instrumental in placing a new headstone on the grave of Mississippi Fred McDowell with funding from Bonnie Raitt through the Mount Zion Memorial Fund.[2] Waterman delivered a tribute to McDowell, an early mentor of younger musicians including Raitt, at the dedication ceremony on August 6, 1993, in Como, Mississippi.[5]
In 2000, he was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame, as one of the first non-performers to be so honored.[6] In 2014 in Memphis he received a Keeping the Blues Alive award for Photography;[2] in October 2017 he received a Brass Note on Beale Street in Memphis.[7]
Waterman died on January 26, 2024, at the age of 88.[8] The cause of death was congestive heart failure.[2]
References
Page Template:Reflist/styles.css has no content.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Dick Waterman, Promoter and Photographer of the Blues, Dies at 88". The New York Times. Retrieved November 7, 2025.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Crafts, Stephen (May 2, 2023). "Dick Waterman". Mmone.org. Retrieved November 7, 2025.
- ^ a b c Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Botkin Lecture Flyer: Between Midnight and Day (The American Folklife Center, Library of Congress)". Loc.gov. Retrieved 2013-12-07.
- ^ a b Sunday alcohol sales high on Oxford agenda Script error: No such module "webarchive".
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Mississippi Fred McDowell". Smokestacklightnin.com. Retrieved 2013-12-07.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Musicguy247: Dick Waterman - Blues Hall of Fame". Musicguy247.typepad.com. Retrieved 2015-08-16.
- ^ Tammy L. Turner, Dick Waterman: A Life in Blues (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi), 2019
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Smith, Harrison (1 February 2024). "Dick Waterman, a steward and chronicler of the blues, dies at 88". The Washington Post. Retrieved 4 February 2024.
Books and articles
- Turner, Tammy L. Dick Waterman: A Life in Blues. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2019
External links
Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:Authority control/config' not found.
