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Red's vintage roots
Louisiana Red's life is the archetype of a bluesman life with its usual mysteries, starting by the origin of his "Louisiana Red" stage name, and by his exact birth place and date : Iverson Minter was actually born either in Bessemer (Alabama) in March 1932 or in Vicksburg (Mississippi) in 1936 ! In the excellent "Blow Train" on "Over My Head", he might give a clue : "Oh train take me back to my hometown… I'm going back to Vicksburg, back to my old hometown… Way down Vicksburg, Mississippi, back down where I belong."
His mother died shortly after his birth, and his father was lynched by the Klan in 1937. He possibly spent several years in an orphanage in New Orleans (which could explain his nickname) before going to live with his grand-mother in Pittsburgh.
In 1950 he joined the US Army as a parachutist (the man's stature is massive) and was sent to Korea. When he was discharged, he played with John Lee Hooker in Detroit for a couple of years in the late 1950s, and recorded under the name Rocky Fuller.In the 1960s and 1970s he recorded a good amount of albums as Louisiana Red, and in 1981 he moved to Hanover in Germany where he spent the rest of his life. He died in 2012 at either almost 80 or 76 leaving behind him an impressive discography of over fifty albums.