Henry was born in Beaufort, Carteret County, North Carolina. He grew up in New Bern, near the North Carolina coast, in the 1920s and 1930s There he befriended the country blues musician Fred Miller, and first as Miller's apprentice and later as his vocalist, Henry earned a modest living performing at local juke joints and fish suppers. Miller later relocated to New York, and Henry made occasional trips there for joint performances. In New York, Henry met Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, and in 1951 he accompanied the duo on some recordings for the producer Bob Shad. The recordings were not released, and a dejected Henry returned to the Carolinas, where worked on fishing and oystering crews throughout most of the 1950s and 1960s. During this period he also ran a grocery store and was a part-time preacher. In 1971, he moved back to Beaufort, where to his surprise younger musicians championed his musical talent. He was soon performing again and writing many new songs, accompanying himself on his Gibson guitar. In later years arthritis affected his guitar playing, so he often improvised, presenting a challenge to the local musicians backing him. Henry's song "Mr. President", recorded in Greenville, North Carolina, in the early 1980s for Audio Arts Records, was a protest against cuts in social welfare undertaken by President Ronald Reagan. It won Henry a W. C. Handy Award in 1983. In 1995, he received the North Carolina Arts Council Heritage Award. He recorded a number of self-released albums in the 1980s and 1990s, often on cassette on his own Hometown Records label, which reached only a limited audience. He became a respected figure locally, mainly because of his generous nature and support of other musicians. Henry also attempted to preserve and record chanties he had sung with other fishermen who went out to catch menhaden for a living. This led to the formation of The Menhaden Chanteymen, a singing and performing group of retired fishermen. Henry's 1995 album, Poor Man's Blues, was produced by Lightnin' Wells. Towards the end of his life, the Music Maker Relief Foundation provided a monthly stipend for prescription medicine and arranged for his album Beaufort Blues to be professionally produced. He was profiled in the book Music Makers: Portraits and Songs from the Roots of America (2004).
Henry died in his hometown in December 2004, at the age of 83.
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By Eugene Chadbourne
Born Richard Henry, this North Carolina country blues artist enjoyed a unique niche in his later life as a folk festival and club performer, bringing great pleasure to blues fans in a period when many older artists in this genre were passing away. He grew up on the North Carolina coast in the '20s and '30s, an era when bluesmen still played on street corners and juke joints were hopping at night with live music. The South Carolinian bluesman Fred Miller was one of his first big musical influences, and Henry assumed the traditional apprentice role in the country blues relationship, meaning he would "go around" with Miller to various functions where a few coins would be made and some blues would be sung. Henry quickly took over the vocal duties since his partner's singing abilities was in direct contrast to his excellent guitar technique. Miller moved to New York and Big Boy Henry began a series of journeys to the city in order to continue their relationship. This led to meetings with other Piedmont bluesmen such as the whooping harmonica player Sonny Terry and his sidekick Brownie McGhee. In 1951, Henry got the opportunity to record with backup from this famous duo, the blues equivalent of getting Rembrandt and Cezanne to help decorate. In a typical development in American blues recording history, these tracks were canned rather than released, although a release was finally arranged decades later. A defeated Henry limped back to his coastal digs in New Bern and decided to give up playing blues.
In the '50s and '60s, he worked on fishing and oystering crews and also ran a grocery store. He also did a touch of preaching in local churches, perhaps following the advice of fellow bluesman Son House as expressed in the song "Preachin' Blues": "I'm gonna become a Baptist preacher/And then I won't have to work." In 1971, he moved back to his first family home in Beaufort, not realizing that this would lead to a group of younger local musicians recognizing him. All it took was a little bit of their subsequent encouragement and he was ready to return to playing. As he got older, the guitarist's abilities were naturally hampered because of arthritis, but he still picked inventive single-string blues lines, tinkering with rhythms and bar-line blues structures with as much freedom as Lightnin' Hopkins. Younger North Carolina blues players such as the harmonica virtuoso Chris Turner and guitarist Billy Hobbs enjoyed the challenge of following the older man, who never failed to set the powerful musical mood known as "deep blues feeling." His vocal style was considered as powerful as ever in his senior years as he created his own inventive versions of blues standards and wrote his own songs as well, often touching on current events. The powerful song "Mr. President," written as an angry response to social welfare cuts undertaken by Ronald Reagan in the '80s, won him a W.C. Handy Award from the Blues Foundation. In 1995, he received the North Carolina Arts Council Folk Heritage award.
Henry's involvement with music goes well beyond performing. He has been actively involved with older members of his community in attempts to maintain and record one of the important coastal traditions, the work songs sung by himself and other African-Americans who fished on menhaden boats. His activities included organizing a group of retired fisherman into a singing group, the Menhaden Chantey Men.