Blind Dog Radio

Duke Henderson

Active 1940s - 1950s.
Sylvester C. Henderson d. 1972 in Los Angeles, CA. While T-Bone Walker was conducting his master class in blues guitar playing, Wynonie Harris was teaching aspiring singers their lessons in blues shouting. From the three Apollo sessions anthologized on Get Your Kicks, it seems that Henderson was one of his earliest and most able pupils, although it is also possible to hear some Joe Turner mannerisms. Nothing is known of how he came to be recording three months after Harris with some of the same musicians, the elite of Los Angeles jazz artists, including Jack McVea, Lucky Thompson, Jewell Grant, Marshal Royal, Teddy Buckner and Rabon Tarrant. Henderson went on to record for Globe, Excelsior, Downbeat, Modern, London and Imperial before cutting ‘Country Girl’ for Specialty Records, his only other title to be reissued. One further session for Flair as Big Duke yielded the topical ‘Hey Dr. Kinsey’. In the early 50s, he worked as a disc jockey for KPOP, doing back-to-back R&B and gospel shows, the latter as Brother Henderson. He later became a minister at the Bethany Apostle Community Church. In the 60s, he had gospel shows on KGFJ and XERB.