HEY LOCO FANS – Happy birthday to Piedmont blues guitarist, mandolin player Floyd Council. He was sometimes credited as Dipper Boy Council and promoted as “The Devil’s Daddy-in-Law”.
Council suffered a stroke in the late 1960s, which partially paralyzed his throat muscles and slowed his motor skills, but did not significantly damage his cognitive abilities. The folklorist Peter B. Lowry attempted to record him one afternoon in 1970, but Council never regained his singing or playing abilities. Accounts say that he remained sharp in mind.
No records are available which exclusively feature Council’s work. The CD Carolina Blues features six songs he recorded: “I’m Grievin’ and I’m Worryin'”, “I Don’t Want No Hungry Woman”, “Lookin’ for My Baby”, “Poor and Ain’t Got a Dime”, “Runaway Man Blues” and “Working Man Blues”.
In a 1969 interview, Council stated he had recorded 27 songs over his career, seven of them backing Blind Boy Fuller. Fuller’s Complete Recorded Works contains many songs with Council playing guitar.
Council died in 1976 of a heart attack, after moving to Sanford, North Carolina. He was buried at White Oak AME Zion Cemetery in Sanford.
Syd Barrett, of the English rock band Pink Floyd, created the band’s name by juxtaposing the first names of Council and South Carolina bluesman Pink Anderson, having noticed the names in the liner notes of a 1962 album by Blind Boy Fuller.
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