Big Joe Duskin

Joseph L. "Big Joe" Duskin (February 10, 1921 – May 6, 2007) was an American blues and boogie-woogie pianist. He is best known for his debut album, Cincinnati Stomp, and the tracks "Well, Well Baby" and "I Met a Girl Named Martha".

Biography

He was born Joseph L. Duskin in Birmingham, Alabama.

In his younger days Duskin performed in clubs in Cincinnati and across the river in Newport, Kentucky. While serving in the U.S. Army in World War II, he continued to play and, in entertaining American servicemen, met his idols Johnson, Albert Ammons and Meade Lux Lewis. and featured Jimmy Johnson and Muddy Waters's guitarist Bob Margolin.

He subsequently toured Austria and Germany, and in 1987 he made his first visit to the U.K.

Duskin's 84th birthday party was held on February 10, 2005, at The Fat Fish Blue, Newport, Kentucky, and included a gathering of musicians and friends including Larry Bloomfield, Larry Nager, Philip Paul, Ed Conley, James Ibold, Frank Lynch and more paying tribute. It helped record his final offering, a double CD album set for Cottage On The Hill Records.

Suffering from the effects of diabetes, Duskin was on the eve of having legs amputated, when he died in May 2007, at the age of 86. The Ohio-based Big Joe Duskin Music Education Foundation keeps his musical ideals alive by producing in-school music presentations for public-school children.

Awards and honors In 2000 Duskin received a Lifetime Achievement "Cammy" ("Cammy" was the nickname for The Cincinnati Enquirer Pop Music Award, which was presented annually to musicians identified with the tri-State area of Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana)

Duskin was presented with a key to the city in 2004 by the mayor of Cincinnati.

Quotation Duskin said in 1987,