Died On This Date (August 6, 1973) Memphis Minnie / Early Blues Great
themusicsover Memphis Minnie (Born Lizzie Douglas)
June 3, 1897 – August 6, 1973
With a career that spanned an impressive four decades, Memphis Minnie is considered one of the most influential female blues guitarists of all time, and having started her career in the ’20s, she is definitely a blues pioneer. Minnie learned to play the guitar as a child, and by the time she was 14, she had run away from home and joined the Ringling Brothers circus. In 1929, she landed her first contract with Columbia Records who released her first hit, “Bumble Bee.” In the early ’40s, Minnie added the electic guitar to her country blues repertoire, being one of the first blues artists to do so, thus paving the way for Muddy Waters, Bo Diddley and Jimmy Rogers. Minnie continued to perform and record until her health started to decline in the mid-’50s, at which time she retired. She died of a stroke in a Memphis nursing home on August 6, 1973.
Otha Young was a guitarist and songwriter who worked with Juice Newton for many years. Over the course of his career, Young wrote such Newton hits as 1981’s “The Sweetest Thing (I’ve Ever Known)” The two began playing together as Dixie Peach, but by the time Newton released her first album on RCA Records in 1975, she was using her own name. As a gifted guitarist, Young played alongside Newton through most of their careers. He can be heard on most of her hit records. Otha Young died as a result of cancer at the age of 66.
Catfish Collins is best remembered as the rhythm guitarist on several influential recordings by P-Funk, Parliament-Funkadelic, and Bootsy’s Rubber Band, which was lead by his brother, Bootsy Collins. During the late ’60s, Collins and his brother, Bootsy, and 
Born in Louisiana but raised in Los Angeles, Willie Egan began playing the piano while still a pre-teen, and by the time he turned 15, he had a record deal and was cutting his first sides. Over the next decade, Egan would release such early R&B gems as “Wow Wow” and “Wear Your Black Dress.” Unfortunately, Egan never broke out as he should have – some blame poor management and sub par distribution of his records. By the late ’60s he was all but forgotten, working as a hospital orderly. In the early ’80s, Egan presumed dead, was located down-and-out in Los Angeles by a British record label head who arranged for him to perform in the UK, sparking a minor comeback. A live album of that event as well as another studio album followed shortly thereafter. On August 5, 2004 Walter Egan passed away after years suffering with cancer.