Eddie Boyd

Edward Riley Boyd was a Mississippi-born pianist and singer who scored one of the biggest blues hits of the early 1950s with 'Five Long Years' for JOB Records in 1952. Raised on the same Stovall Plantation as Muddy Waters, he moved to Chicago and became part of the postwar blues scene, recording for RCA, Chess, and other labels. Like Memphis Slim and others, he found greater appreciation in Europe and moved to Paris in the 1960s, then to Helsinki, Finland, where he spent his final decades. His piano style combined Chicago blues with a smooth, sophisticated touch.