Eddie Tigner was working in a school cafeteria in Atlanta, GA, when I first heard about him in 1995. He had toured the country running an Inkspots group for 35 years. He had played every Holiday Inn and every Army base in the continental US, but by the 1990’s he was retired from music and enjoyed his job feeding the school kids.

Eddie wasn’t really done playing, he told me, but he had sold all his gear. Music Maker bought him a nice electronic keyboard and helped him get started performing locally in Atlanta with the help of MM Board member Mudcat, a legendary Atlanta Blues performer. Soon Eddie joined the Music Maker Blues Revue to play the Chicago Blues Festival, and began regularly touring with us.

Later, when we had a huge record in France, Eddie was part of our European Music Maker tours, performing in Germany, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Portugal, France, Belgium and Austria. Then he brought his blues with us to Australia.

We issued two wonderful recordings of Eddie that are just classics; it has been such and honor to partner with Eddie. This man joined the Army and served with Les Paul and T-Bone Walker and backed up the legendary Elmore James for a year when he played the Atlanta Racetrack Bar. Eddie has played all these years, and at the age of 89 he just tore down at Roots N Blues N BBQ in Columbia, MO.

Eddie and Music Maker are looking ahead, as we always do – booking more shows. At the age of 92 Eddie plays regularly every Sunday in Atlanta at Fat Matts. Go see him!

— Tim

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