Lurrie Bell plays away the blues

Lurrie Bell plays away the blues
May 19, 2011
By Deborah Ramírez
SunSentinel.com

s the son of harmonica legend Carey Bell, Lurrie Bell grew up in a West Side Chicago household filled with blues royalty that included Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon and Eddie Taylor.

By the time Lurrie Bell was 17, he had become something of a musical prodigy, teaching himself to play the electric blues guitar and performing onstage with Dixon and blues queen Koko Taylor.

But his bright future soon darkened as Bell became moody and withdrawn. He failed show up for gigs and was often incoherent when he did. Alcohol and drugs made matters worse. Bell soon retreated from the music scene and found himself on the streets. He was eventually diagnosed with schizophrenia.

"I was confused about what I wanted to do, who were my friends and how to relate to society," said Bell, now 52, of his "dark days." "Everything was going too fast for me."

The story of Lurrie Bell is fast and furious, filled with heartbreak and mental illness, but also with hope, inspiration and the redemptive power of love.

Bell, who performs tonight at Boston's on the Beach in Delray Beach, regained his health and his music career. Last year, he was nominated for a Grammy for his work on Chicago Blues: A Living History and he has won several Blues Music Awards and tours the world. His road to recovery began in the early '90s when he met his wife, photographer Susan Greenberg.

"She was there for me all the time," said Bell recently from his home in Chicago. "She made sure that I got to the right doctors and that I took the right medication. She inspired me to keep going."

Bell did keep going, through the illness and death of his baby twins, born prematurely. After their loss, the couple had another child, Aria, but tragedy struck again when Greenberg, who had also battled mental illness, died from cancer in January 2007. The following May, Bell lost his father and mentor, Carey.

"It hurt me very deeply to lose my baby twins, my wife and my father all one after the other," Bell recalled. "It was hard to deal with, but I think it also woke me up. It taught me to do the best at whatever I do. I learned that I had to focus more on my music, and I have."

Bell says when he's onstage he often thinks about the musicians he met as a child, the father who inspired him and the wife who loved him.

"I pick up my guitar and play the blues away."