Calgary Herald from Calgary, Alberta, Canada • 71

CALGARY HERALD Thursday, May 17, 2007 F3 Perfection Has Its Price. MUSIC Country music veterans, rookies haul in hardware 4 ENlTiRTAINMENT. And the winners are Entertainer: Kenny Chesney. Male Vocalist: Brad Paisley. Female Vocalist: Carrie Underwood.

Vocal Group: Rascal Flatts. Vocal Duo: Brooks Dunn. New Male Vocalist: Rodney Atkins. New Female Vocalist: Miranda Lambert. New Duo or Vocal Group: Little Big Town.

Album: Some Hearts, Carrie Underwood. Single record: Give It Away, George Strait. Song of the Year: Give It Away, George Strait. Kir Jf l) V' Herald Archive, Associated Press Honeyboy Edwards was present when blues legend Robert Johnson died after drinking poisoned whiskey in 1938. At 91, Honeyboy Edwards keeps Delta blues alive Chesney Underwood among victors TOM GARDNER The Associated Press LAS VEGAS Kenny Chesney collected his third consecutive entertainer of the year trophy Tuesday night as the Academy of Country Music also paid tribute to a youngster and some oldsters.

Veteran George Strait won the song of the year, newcomer Carrie Underwood claimed album of the year and the venerable Brooks Dunn were honoured as top vocal duo for an unprecedented 14th time. Brooks Dunn were up against some stiff competition from Sugarland, Montgomery Gentry, Big Rich and The Wreckers, and Ronnie Dunn fretted before the show that the pair had to lose "sooner or later." "Not this year," an exuberant Kix Brooks said as the duo claimed the trophy. "It's still as much fun as it's ever been and we're going to keep doing it." A few minutes later, a subdued Chesney, wearing a black cowboy hat, accepted the top award, paying tribute to fellow musicians Keith Whitley and Strait. "When I first started playing music, I was in college and I would go rent all my equipment and put it in the back of a pickup truck. The only thing I wanted to do was cut a record as good as Keith Whitley did and I listened to that music over and over again," he said.

Strait, who came into the competition with a leading eight nominations, claimed the first award of the night, winning song of the year for Give It Away. As he collected his trophy, it! Muddy Waters and Son House the week before, was famous for combing the dusty back roads of America searching for authentic sounds. But not long after the recording session had started the sky grew black and a storm came howling in threatening to shut down the entire town. "We started recording about 12 o'clock," says Edwards, in a cellphone interview from a tour stop in Iowa. "This big storm came through and we had to cut off all the equipment.

It took about an an hour and a half to blow through. We thought it was a tornado. But he came back and gave me $20. Man, I really thought I had something. $20 was a lot of money back then." It was the first time Honeyboy Edwards' deep voice and acoustic guitar stylings had ever been put to tape.

But he was hardly a novice in the field. By 1942, he had already secured his place in blues history. A veteran of the Delta juke joints of the south, he lived the life of a journeyman musician alongside Johnson, Horton and Yank Rachell throughout the 1930s and 1940s. He was even on hand when Johnson was famously poisoned in 1938 on the crossroads near Greenwood, Miss. He later joined artists such as Floyd Jones and Kansas City Red on Chicago street corners and blues clubs throughout the 1950s and 1960s and recorded with Horton, Sam Phillips, Ed he seemed particularly touched that as an older performer he wasn't forgotten.

"I'm old enough to be Carrie Underwood's grandfather," the 55-year-old said of his 24-year-old fellow singer. Underwood, the 2005 American Idol winner, won album of the year for her debut CD, Some Hearts, and was honoured as top female vocalist. "I would not be here if it were not for American Idol," she said as she collected her vocal award. Strait was also nominated for entertainer of the year, along with Brooks Dunn, Rascal Flatts, Tim McGraw and two-time winner Kenny Chesney. Miranda Lambert won new female vocalist, beating out former American Idol contestant Kellie Pickler and teenage country star Taylor Swift.

Brooks Dunn earlier were named recipients of the Home Depot Humanitarian Award, joining past hon-ourees McEntire, Vince Gill, Lonestar, McBride and Neal McCoy. The group will be honoured with two playgrounds to be built in cities of their choice. 1 Mark J. Terrill, Associated Press Brooks accept an award. Source: SoundScan modern music.

"Yeah, I was in Greenwood, Edwards says. "I was there, I was there. I sure was. 1938 on the 17th day of August. That's when he died.

I was 23 years old and he was 27. That's old enough to remember." But despite his position of esteem in the history of the blues, much of the world had forgotten about Honeyboy by 1972. All but four of his recordings had disappeared and he was playing small clubs in Chicago when a young blues enthusiast named Michael Frank rediscovered him. "He was a contemporary of all those guys," says Frank, who started Chicago's Earwig Music to help preserve the work of some of his heroes. "He was younger than guys like Charlie Patton, but he was playing gigs with them, not some kid on the sidelines.

A lot of people don't realize that." Since 1972, Frank has been managing Edwards and often accompanies him on harp during tours. He also resurrected some of Edwards' old recordings and helped him get back into the studio. Edwards, meanwhile, says he has no plans to retire. "I try to study some of the recordings," says Edwards. "There's always something new and some changes.

The styles change. But the blues is never going to go away. It's going to be around forever. There's too many people playing it." Guitarist played with legendary Robert Johnson ERICVOLMERS Calgary Herald There is something appropriately mythical about David (Honeyboy) Edwards' stormy entry into the recorded history of the blues. Not that the veteran musi- cian's story is in any real need of embellishment.

At 91 years old, he is the last man SPOTLIGHT David (Honeyboy) Edwards plays Calgary's Red Onion on Friday. standing of the Mississippi Delta fraternity that included Robert Johnson, Big Walter Horton, Muddy Waters, Charlie Patton and Son House. His back story outlined in his 1999 autobiography The World Don't Owe Me Nothing is full of swampy tales of devastating floods, cruel poverty and rampant racism of the south. But in 1942, famed American folklorist Alan Lomax drove down to Edwards' Clarksdale, Mississippi home in a shiny new Hudsoa hoping to record some of songs for posterity as part of his field recordings for the library of Congress. Lomax, who had recorded die Ell and Fleetwood Mac, among others.

He even jammed with Keith Richards in Connecticut Now, after 75 years in the business, he still regularly tours North America and Europe, making the most of his reputation as the last living link between the Chicago blues and its Mississippi Delta roots. "That's all I know to do," says Edwards, who will play Calgary's Red Onion on May 18. "That's what I do, until I get tired of it I really like the blues and I like to play the guitar. So I go out and make money. At home, I'll pick up the guitar and play for 15 or 20 minutes and put in back in the case.

I always keep it in action." Born in 1915, Edwards grew up in Shaw, Miss, and was introduced to the blues early in life. "My father played guitar and violin, so I learned from my father," he says. "He bought me the first guitar. Someone had bought it from the Sears book and grew tired of it. So my father bought it for me and that's what I learned to play on." By the age of 13, he was playing dances and picnics.

At 17, he joined up with Big Joe Williams and started playing clubs. He never looked back. In 1938, he was at the fateful party in August when doomed bluesman Robert Johnson drank some poisoned whisky, reportedly after bedding another man's girL Johnson died a few days later, securing a place of mythology in the history of j( Ronnie Dunn, left, and Kix Calgary's Top 10 Music Country Alternative Current Hard Rock This Last This Last This Last This Ust Last week National Artist week week National Artist week weeK National Artist weeK week National Artist week week National Artist week 1 1 Carrie Underwood 1 1 2 Feist 1 1 1 1 1 Rush 1 1 1 Timbaland 1 Some Hearts Reminder Call Me Irresponsible Snakes Arrows Timbaland Presents Shock Value 2 2 Tim McGraw 2 2 1 AvrllLavigne 2 2 4 Fei5t. 2 3 Nine Inch Nails 2 2 4 BoneThugs-N-Harmony Let It go Best Damn Thing Reminder Year Zero Strength Loyalty 3 3 Dixie Chicks 5 3 3 Bjork 3 3 AvrllLavigne 1 3 2 Daughtry 3 3 2 Justin Timberlake 3 Taking The Long Way Volta Best Damn Thing Daughtry FuturesexAove Sounds 4 5 Rascal Flatts 3 4 5 Nine Inch Nails 3 4 6 Bjork 44 Finger Eleven 4 4 5 Ne-Yo 2 Me A My Gang Year Zero Volta Them Vs. You Vs.

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