Burnside, Kimbrough and Belfour

by | May 9, 2008

I came across Robert “Wolfman” Belfour earlier this week and I love his story. He grew up in North Mississippi’s hill country, so blues is in his soul, but he never had a music career until he started playing on the streets in Memphis.

His father died when Belfour was 13, and his music was relegated to what little free time he had, as his energy went to helping his mother provide for the family. In 1959, he married Noreen Norman and moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where he would work in construction for the next 35 years.

In the 1980s Belfour began playing on Beale Street and in 1994 he had eight songs featured on the compilation album, The Spirit Lives On, Deep South Country Blues and Spirituals in the 1990s. This led him to Fat Possum Records and his first album What’s Wrong With You, which was released in 2000 when Belfour was 60.

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His 2003 release Pushin’ My Luck is now in my listening rotation (it’s available on iTunes). Here’s track two from that record, “Breaking My Heart,” courtesy of the label.

See Belfour perform “Done Got Old” on YouTube.