Hip Linkchain

Life and career He was born in Jackson, Mississippi. His stage name was in deference to his father's nickname, Linkchain, which was due to his habit of sporting logging chains around his neck, and the boy's childhood nickname, Hipstick. He was inspired by the blues playing of Sonny Boy Williamson II, Elmore James and Little Milton, all of whom Linkchain heard in the Mississippi Delta, before he relocated to Chicago, Illinois, in 1954. Linkchain found regular employment playing blues guitar in the clubs of Chicago throughout the 1950s and 1960s, working at various times with the harmonica players Lester Davenport, Dusty Brown, and Little Willy Foster.

By 1959, Linkchain had formed his own band, the Chicago Twisters, with Tyrone Davis as frontman. Linkchain recorded sporadically, mainly for small independent record labels based in Chicago, and a handful of his singles were released in the 1960s. His debut album, Change My Blues, with Pinetop Perkins (piano), Rich Kirch (guitar), Right Hand Frank Bandy (bass) and Fred Grady (drums), was released by the small Teardrop Records in 1983. In 2013 the Killer Blues Project placed a headstone for Linkchain (Willie Richard) at Restvale Cemetery in Alsip, Illinois.

Discography Albums Year Title Record label 1983 Change My Blues Teardrop Records 1993 Airbusters Evidence Records 1996 I Am on My Way Storyville Records 1999 Jimmy and Hip Live! † Rumble Records 2007 Westside Chicago Blues Guitar P-Vine Records

† Jimmy and Hip Live! was a live album, recorded with Jimmy Dawkins in Champaign, Illinois, in 1982.