Ashton Savoy was a guitarist and vocalist who was born in Louisiana but spent most of his professional career in Texas as part of the once thriving blues scene centred around Houston. His recorded legacy was small but impressive and he continued to perform at concerts and local festivals until ill health forced him to retire.
He was born in Sunset, Louisiana, in 1928 and grew up in a musical family. His father played violin and guitar and Savoy’s musical tastes were strengthened by a period spent in Chicago with his uncle when that city was seeing the transformation of acoustic Delta blues into the more hard-edged style of electric music that would dominate the genre in the years to come.
As a teenager he moved to Lake Charles, Louisiana, where many black artists sang zydeco, the Louisiana roots music which featured songs sung in Creole French. But despite its attraction, Savoy remained a staunch bluesman. “Man, I didn’t want to do zydeco,” he told the blues researcher Roger Wood.
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In 1958 he cut the novelty vocal Denga Denga for the maverick producer Eddie Shuler who ran the Goldband label in Lake Charles.
The following year he teamed up with his girlfriend then, the piano player Katie Webster, and together they cut the minor blues classic Baby Baby (sometimes referred to as No Bread, No Meat) for the record boss Jay Miller in Crowley, Louisiana. As Savoy sets up a walking-blues groove on his guitar, Webster sings: “Somebody done fooled that child, honey, and made him think he’s cute.” An innocent Savoy then calls out: “Hello baby, it’s so good to see you now . . .”
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He returned to Shuler’s Lake Charles studio later the same year to cut a handful of tracks, including Need Shorter Hours and Tell Me Baby in a manner which borrowed from the style of the popular Chicago bluesman Jimmy Reed.
The tracks were not issued at the time, but later turned up on a much-prized LP, Louisiana Blues, issued by the Danish Storyville label in 1965 at the instigation of the British blues writer Mike Leadbitter, who had pioneered the promotion of Louisiana blues and cajun music.
By the time the album appeared, Savoy had moved to Houston where he spent the rest of his career, becoming a permanent fixture of the local blues scene. “He was a mixture of Jimmy Reed, Louisiana cajun and Texas. He was a real soulful cat,” recalled his fellow Houston performer Sonny Boy Terry.
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In 1999 he was reunited with Webster for the album Louisiana.
A few months later, while fishing, he threw his line over a live power line and suffered a huge electric shock, resulting in damage to one of his hands. While it made playing difficult for him, he continued to perform.
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The tracks he cut for Goldband were reissued by the British company Ace on the CD Goin’ Down to Louisiana in 2001 to much acclaim.
Savoy is survived by his wife, Leona, and eight children.
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Ashton Savoy, blues singer and guitarist, was born in 1928. He died after a prolonged period of ill health on May 15, 2009, aged 80