Big Daddy Kinsey
He was born near Pleasant Grove, Mississippi. He grew up playing gospel music; his father was a pastor in the Church of God in Christ and disapproved of blues music. However, Kinsey started playing guitar at parties in Mississippi, before moving in 1944 to Gary, Indiana, where he worked in a steel mill.
Big Daddy Kinsey
- Born
- 1927 · Mississippi.
- Died
- 2001 · Gary.
- Nationality
- United States
- Occupation
- musician · singer · guitarist
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wikidata · Q858741 · wikipedia · Big Daddy Kinsey
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He married and served in the military before returning to work in Gary and raising a family. In the late 1950s, he started a family band, Big Daddy Kinsey and His Fabulous Sons, with his children, but it dissolved in the early 1970s, and Lester Kinsey began playing harmonica with a local band, the Soul Brothers. His second son, guitarist Donald Kinsey, played in Albert King's band in the 1970s, and later joined Bob Marley and the Wailers, but in 1984 rejoined his father and brothers Ralph and Kenneth to form The Kinsey Report. The band featured Lester "Big Daddy" Kinsey as slide guitarist and harmonica player. They signed for the Rooster Blues label, and in 1985 with Alligator Records, becoming "one of the hottest attractions in contemporary blues". In the early 1990s Kinsey recorded the album I Am the Blues, featuring such musicians as Buddy Guy, James Cotton, and Pinetop Perkins. He developed prostate cancer, and died in Gary in 2001 aged 74. His sons have continued to perform as The Kinsey Report.
• 1985: Bad Situation • 1990: Can't Let Go • 1993: I Am the Blues • 1995: Ramblin' Man
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Mississippi.
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Gary.
Death place
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Part of the biographical narrative on this page reuses licensed material. Its origin, revision and licence are recorded here.
The biographical narrative on this page is based on the Wikipedia article Big Daddy Kinsey, revision 1371003153 (EN edition), by its contributors. VALÉORINE has edited that text and built its own documentary record around it. The reused material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0, and this page's reuse of it is offered under the same licence. Everything else on this page — the chronology, the holdings, the evidence, the plates and the connections — is VALÉORINE's own record. Sources and licences.
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The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 21 August 2026.
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