Chicago blues legend John Primer nominated for Grammy
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Blues guitarist and Chicago legend John Primer was nominated for a Grammy Sunday night. He did not win, but he has played the sounds of the city for decades, along with some very big names.
Blues music is a way of telling stories.
"Blues ain't nothing but hard times. That's the real blues, telling a story, good things that happened, bad things that happened. It's true music," Primer said.
The story he is telling now is that of another blues legend--Magic Slim.
"It's very important for me to do this CD," he said.
Primer's newest Grammy-nominated album is a tribute to the Teardrops band leader who died in 2013.
"He never won a Grammy," said Primer. "He was one of the original guys."
Primer has played with many originals. A picture in his basement studio shows him playing with blues icon Muddy Waters. In another he is on stage with Waters and the Rolling Stones. He is right behind Mick Jagger.
Primer was born in Mississippi, the grandson of a sharecropper. In 1963 at the age of 18, he moved to Chicago with his mother and started performing the music he learned as a child.
Now he has several solo albums and his own record label, and he headlines concerts all over the world.
"I do it to make people feel good," he said. "People have hard times, so you gotta make them feel good."
Primer says his goal now is to keep making people feel good.
"I'm never gonna stop playing," he said.
And it's not just the Grammys. Primer is also nominated for three awards from the Blues Foundation. They will be given out in May.
