Master of harmonica influenced blues, rock
James Cotton, a pioneering harmonica player who worked with Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf and helped establish his instrument as an integral part of modern blues, died Thursday in Austin, Texas. He was 81.
Marc Lipkin, the director of publicity at Alligator Records, Mr. Cotton’s label, said the cause was pneumonia.
Many of Mr. Cotton’s lasting early contributions came during his first tenure with Waters, in Chicago, where from 1954 to 1966 he played in a band that included guitarist Jimmy Rogers and pianist Otis Spann.
Often heard in close call and response with Waters’ deep, declamatory vocals, Mr. Cotton’s squalling harmonica animated dozens of recordings Waters made for the influential Chess label, including classics like “Got My Mojo Working” and “Rock Me.”
Mr. Cotton embarked on a solo career in 1966 when he formed the James Cotton Blues Band. He and his group spent much of the next decade making records of their own and sharing bills with popular rock acts like Janis Joplin and Cream.
Mr. Cotton’s muscular, heavily amplified harmonica — he typically played with a microphone cupped tightly to his instrument — influenced the work of several major blues-rock groups of the era, among them the Allman Brothers, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band and the Electric Flag.
Mr. Cotton reunited with Waters on the 1977 album “Hard Again,” which included a raucous remake of Waters’ 1950s classic “Mannish Boy.” Produced by guitarist Johnny Winter, the album won a Grammy Award for best ethnic or traditional recording and helped Chicagostyle blues gain a wider audience.
James Henry Cotton was born July 1, 1935, in Tunica, Miss., the youngest of eight brothers and sisters. His parents, Hattie and Mose, were sharecroppers who worked on a cotton plantation. His father was also the preacher at the local Baptist church.
Mr. Cotton was inspired to take up the harmonica by his mother, who liked to use the instrument to mimic the squawking of chickens and the whistles of freight trains.
Although Mr. Cotton was probably most celebrated for his work in the employ of others, his career as a bandleader, and as a dynamic showman known to do back flips onstage, proved to have greater longevity, spanning nearly half a century.