John P. Hammond

John Paul Hammond, born 13 November 1942 in New York City, New York, was an American blues singer, guitarist, songwriter and harmonist whose career spanned six decades. He began playing guitar in high school, influenced by Jimmy Reed at Carnegie Hall, and dropped out of Antioch College to pursue music. John Hammond’s breakthrough came with his 1963 debut album John Hammond on Vanguard Records, followed by Big City Blues (1964) and Country Blues (1965), establishing him as one of the first white artists to record blues during the folk boom. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s he released albums such as Mirrors (1967), Sooner or Later (1968), and the soundtrack Little Big Man (1971), collaborating with Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, and The Band. In the 1990s and 2000s he issued Got Love If You Want It (1993), Wicked Grin (2001), Ready for Love (2003), and Rough & Tough (2009), earning a Grammy nomination in 1985 and multiple Blues Music Awards, including Acoustic Artist of the Year in 2011. Hammond died of cardiac arrest on 28 February 2026 in Jersey City, New Jersey, at age 83.

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