Music
Washboard Willie
1906–1991 · blues washboard player, singer, bandleader
Washboard specialist who led the Super Suds of Rhythm in Detroit bars for three decades and toured Europe with fellow bluesmen in 1973.
- Born
Bullock County, Alabama- Died
Detroit, Michigan
aged 85- Birth name
- William Paden Hensley
- Detroit years
- 1948–1991
- Field
- Music
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Hensley took up music only in his thirties and was living in Detroit by 1948. His break came in 1952, when he sat in with Eddie "Guitar" Burns's band on washboard and impressed the club's owner enough to win a residency that lasted three years. He named his group Washboard Willie and the Super Suds of Rhythm, a joke on a laundry-soap brand, and it became a fixture of Detroit and Ann Arbor bars; a young Little Sonny started out in his backing band. His first record, "Cherry Red Blues," came out in 1956, and he recorded for Joe Von Battle as well as with pianist Boogie Woogie Red, though many of those tracks were not issued until 1969. In 1973 he toured Europe with Lightnin' Slim, Snooky Pryor and Homesick James and played the Detroit blues show at the Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz Festival. He stopped performing around 1979 and died in Detroit in 1991.
Highlights
- Leader of Washboard Willie and the Super Suds of Rhythm
- First record "Cherry Red Blues" (1956)
- Also known for "A Fool on a Mule in the Middle of the Road"
- European tour with the American Blues Legends package in 1973
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 1
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Recorded here · 1950s
Joe's Record Shop (Hastings Street)
Demolished · 1945–1960
Joe Von Battle recorded Washboard Willie among the Hastings Street regulars he captured in his shop studio.