Yet again this week, inspiration for my blues artist profile came easily while I was greatly enjoying the superb CD by Cootie Stark entitled Raw Sugar (Music Maker Recordings MMCD 30).  I hadn’t pulled this collection from my CD rack in quite some time, and now that I have again been wholly entertained by Stark’s blues offerings, it seems the appropriate time to provide a brief outline of his life and music career.

The blues artist who came to be known as Cootie Stark came into the world as Johnny (some researchers suggest “Johnnie”) Miller in late December, 1927 in Abbeville, South Carolina, the county seat of Abbeville County, a region in the northwestern portion of the state.  His parents were sharecropping folks, and at some point early in his life the family moved to a home in Anderson County, which is located just north of Abbeville County, an area that combined with a total of 11 counties is known as “The Upstate.” 

An important fact in the life of Stark is that he was born partially blind.

Of course, the Carolina region of the U.S. was once rife with the blues guitar style known as “The Carolina Piedmont Blues,” a form of the music blues based upon an established Black blues variety that grew within the Piedmont regions of Virginia, Georgia, and both South and North Carolina.  For clarity, the greater Piedmont region is a plateau area that is located between the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Atlantic Plain from central Alabama in the south all the way to New York in the north.  The guitar style is founded upon string picking methods that developed from the banjo, an instrument which firstly came from the area of West Africa.

The Piedmont style of guitar is one that is distinguished by a fingerpicking method whereby a consistent, fluctuating bass rhythmic design deployed by use of the thumb serves as the foundation for an accented melody that is generally made by picking with the index finger.

Research is quite vague on Stark’s early developmental years, though it is reasonable to conclude that he was exposed to the great blues being made all around him, as the region was filled with superb blues guitar practitioners.

What is generally accepted is that at the age of 14 Stark was bestowed a guitar by his father, and he quickly developed into a more-than-capable musician, and was known to have quickly been playing on street corners for money. 

While still a teen, Stark made the decision to leave his family’s home and move to Greenville, South Carolina.  With his eyesight continuing to deteriorate, Stark found great difficulty in finding and keeping traditional day work.  As a result, he turned to a familiar course and began playing music on the streets, both obviously increasing his time performing for audiences and perfecting his skill sets, but also making contact with and learning certain playing nuances and expanding his catalogue of songs from a grouping of fellow blues artists including fellow South Carolinian blues guitarist and singer Pink Anderson, blues and ragtime guitar player Walter Phelps, Piedmont guitar stylist Baby Tate, and blues guitarist, singer, actor, civil rights advocate, and songwriter Josh White, among others.  It can be proffered that Baby Tate played the major role in the younger Stark’s musical development.

It was also during these early days in Greenville that Stark acquired the nickname of “Sugar Man.”  It should also be pointed out at this point that Stark acquired his performing name “Cootie Stark” as a result of combining a nickname from his early years with that of the surname of his grandfather.

Stark continued to play his blues, primarily on the streets, all across South Carolina, including Columbia, but also in Asheville and Greensboro, North Carolina, as well as in other southern U.S. cities.  And unfortunately, by his early thirties, his eyesight was so significantly diminished that he was declared legally blind.  Still living in Greenville, South Carolina, Stark was able to boost the meager living he was earning on the streets by performing at a variety of hometown opportunities he had, including those found at private residences, square dances, restaurants, and yes, on the street corners.  During this period, Stark was known to also use another performing name, Blind Johnny Miller, as well.

Many years later as the 1980s rolled around, Stark had pretty much given up music, and was somewhat despondent that the first generation of Piedmont blues practitioners were all but gone.  Still living in Greenville in relative obscurity, without ever having made a record, Stark nonetheless held tight to his hope that one day his musical skills would bring him greater rewards.

A fateful encounter in 1997 with Tim Duffy, the Music Maker Relief Foundation’s creator, would change Stark’s blues career for the better.  Duffy had happened upon Stark when he was performing, and was especially taken by a Fats Domino cover song he was playing on an electric guitar.  So taken was Duffy that a conversation was struck, and he was very interested in Stark’s assertion that he came up through the old school and had a repertoire of thousands of songs from all his years of performing at his disposal. 

The Music Maker Relief Foundation is a non-profit organization that assists musicians in being able to attain their daily subsistence needs, promotes them, and provides recording opportunities via their label.  Duffy and Music Maker saw to it that Stark’s needs were addressed, while also releasing his first recorded collection entitled Sugar Man in in 1999, along with his second release for the label, 2003’s Raw Sugar, a collection where roots musician Taj Mahal accompanied him.

Stark’s debut 1999 collection offered performing opportunities for him, with Music Make arranging the outings for him.  As Stark developed a wider audience for his work, and after his second release, he traveled to and performed, often with Taj Mahal, at venues he at one time could probably only dream about, including all across the U.S. (including nightspots and other places in Upstate South Carolina) and in Europe.  Also in the U.S., Stark played prestigious sites such as Lincoln Center in New York, various large blues festivals, plus he journeyed in South America to play with Taj Mahal in Costa Rica.

Stark’s style of blues obviously was deeply indebted to the Piedmont style of guitar, as he could pick with the best of them.  But he, too, also carried the more raggedy forms of blues playing and singing he witnessed from his earliest influencers, and those gleaned from seeing and hearing so many others on the thousands of miles he traveled as a street musician.

Starks could bellow as a vocalist, though he sang with a pleasing earnestness and confidence.

In April, 2005, Stark was bestowed the Jean Laney Harris Folk Heritage Award, a one-time, annual honor bestowed by the South Carolina General Assembly to practitioners and supporters of traditional arts deemed important to areas throughout the state.

Stark passed away in in mid-April, 2005 at the age of 77.

For those interested in Starks’s work, below are recordings that should be of interest.

• Sugar Man – Music Maker Recordings (MMCD8)
• Raw Sugar – Music Maker Recordings (MMCD 30)
• Various Artists – Music Makers with Taj Mahal – Music Maker (MMCD49)
• Various Artists – Winston Blues Revival – Music Maker Recordings (PROMM1)