He left Mississippi with two of his brothers in the late fifties, settling first in Gary, Indiana, then later in Chicago, the mecca for Delta blues, homeboys from the Deep South bringing their music up north. Joe soon fell in with Muddy Waters and a young Buddy Guy, played in a band with Little Walter, and had a regular gig doing session work for the Chess brothers. He toured some, joining Bobby “Blue” Bland’s group, but never broke out on his own. He stopped touring and recording in the late sixties, and he was killed in a robbery in Lark, Texas, in 2010, at the age of seventy-one.
