Joe August

Joe August (September 13, 1931 – August 9, 1992) was an American blues and R&B singer and songwriter who performed and recorded as "Mr. Google Eyes" or sometimes "Mr. G".

Biography Joseph Charles Augustus was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. His family moved to the newly opened Iberville Projects in 1940. August recalled, "My grandmother got me singing in the choir of the First Emmanuel Baptist Church. That's where I got my bottom from." His mother and grandmother were against him getting into music, especially the blues. "My family was dearest against it. My grandmother said I'd be working for the devil, so they wouldn't buy me an instrument. I wanted a set of drums too. Everybody in the neighborhood had a horn or a saxophone. The next best thing I had was my voice, so that was my instrument."

His father, Joe August Sr. wrote a regular local music column called "Here It Is" that was published in the Louisiana Weekly from May 1941 to March 1943. The column also included sports and social news and occasional political commentary relating to New Orleans' African-American community. Alphonse J. "Joe" August Sr. was 87 when he died in New Orleans March 29, 1987.

As a teenager August worked for local restaurateur Dooky Chase, who gave him the nickname "Mr. Google Eyes" for his habit of ogling attractive female customers. Chase also sponsored a local jazz band, with whom August would occasionally sing. After earning enough money to buy his own PA system, he began performing regularly at the local Downbeat Club, appearing with Roy Brown. He recorded four discs for Coleman, a black-owned record company, with Lee Allen and Paul Gayten backing him. Thereafter August worked as a bartender and MC in New Orleans, performing occasionally with Earl King and Deacon John Moore in the New Orleans Blues Revue. In the mid-1980s, Swedish R&B aficionado Jonas Bernholm contacted August after meeting him on a trip to New Orleans. With his permission, Bernholm arranged to re-release seventeen of August's recordings from 1949 until 1954 on the Swedish label Route 66, a division of Mr R&B Records. Bernholm made certain to pay royalties to August and other R&B artists whose music he reissued. In letter to Bernholm dated November 11, 1986, August wrote of his performing prowess. "I have been blessed and in good health. I'm able to perform two good hours without a break and hold the people in the palm of my hand."

He died in New Orleans in 1992, aged 60. At his jazz funeral, Mac Rebennack (Dr. John) said: "It is with great pride that we carry the message of the blues that you instilled in us as children."