Sam Carr

Emerging Indie Singer-Songwriter

American blues drummer. Son of Robert Nighthawk. Born : April 17, 1926 in (near) Marvell, Arkansas. Died : September 21, 2009 in Clarksdale, Mississippi. Born near Marvell, Arkansas, McCollum was adopted as a toddler by the Carr family and raised on their farm near Dundee, Mississippi. He took their surname. At 16, Carr returned to Arkansas, where he played bass for his biological father, Robert Nighthawk, an established blues musician, and also worked as a chauffeur. He married Doris in 1946, and they began sharecropping in Helena, Arkansas. He was involved in a dispute over a borrowed mule team with the plantation owner, who attempted to beat him. Carr later stated, "I wasn't going to let him whoop me, that was plumb out of the question. From that day on, white people called me crazy." The Carrs moved to Chicago and then St. Louis to live with Carr’s biological mother. In St. Louis, Carr began playing bass guitar with the harmonica player Tree Top Slim. Carr formed his own band, Little Sam Carr and the Blue Kings, which initially featured Nighthawk's second wife, Early Bea, on drums, until Carr decided to take on that role. The band played mostly in "low-class clubs" in poor neighborhoods of St. Louis. In 1956, Carr began working regularly with Frank Frost, who played the harmonica and guitar.