Lonesome Sundown

Cornelius Green III (December 12, 1928 – April 23, 1995), known professionally as Lonesome Sundown, was an American blues musician, best known for his swamp blues recordings for Excello Records in the 1950s and early 1960s.

Early life Green was born in 1928 on the Dugas Plantation near Donaldsonville, Louisiana. In 1948, at the age of 18, he moved to New Orleans and worked in various jobs, including porter at the New Southport Club, a casino in Jefferson Parish, at a hotel, a rice mill, and with a construction company.

Green married later in 1955, left the Zydeco Ramblers, and moved to Opelousas, Louisiana, where he began playing with Lloyd Reynauld and writing his own songs. He recorded a demo tape and took it to the producer J. D. "Jay" Miller in Crowley. Miller was impressed, gave Green the stage name "Lonesome Sundown", and recorded his debut single, "Leave My Money Alone" backed with "Lost Without Love", which he leased to Excello Records in 1956.

Sundown played several concerts, including an appearance at the 1979 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and tours of Sweden and Japan with Phillip Walker, but then walked away from the music business for good. He was posthumously inducted into the Louisiana Blues Hall of Fame in 2000.

Selected discography Lonesome Sundown (AKA Lonesome Lonely Blues) (1970), Excello Records Been Gone Too Long (1977), Joliet; Alligator; HighTone I'm a Mojo Man: Best of the Excello Singles (1995), Excello/AVI Records Mojo Man: The Complete 1956–1962 Excello Singles (2020), Soul Jam [EU] Records