Cover photo © 2025 Bob Kieser

When you’re an all-state offensive lineman who stands 6-foot-4 and your dad’s a high school football coach who’s recently been inducted into the Mississippi Valley State College hall of fame alongside Jerry Rice, it’s highly probable that you’re headed for a career on the gridiron. Fortunately for blues lovers, that’s not the case when it comes to Ra’Shad the Blues Kid, who in reality – at age 37 – is definitely no kid at all.

An accomplished singer/guitarist Ra’Shad hails from Laurel, Miss., a town of 18,000 tucked into the southeastern corner of the Magnolia State, a place where Friday Night Lights and Southern soul are the driving forces of life and the sounds of the Delta, Chicago and other northern cities are more of an afterthought than anything else.

But for almost all of Ra’Shad’s life, the blues has been calling his name.

Born Larry Ra’Shad Lavar McGill on Sept. 30, 1987, he’s the youngest of four kids, and he came into this world hearing-impaired, suffering from asthma and a myriad of other related health issues. It’s a miracle he’s come as far in the world as he has.

“Lord,” he says, “I was allergic to everything growing up…sports and all that stuff was kinda outta the picture. I had to have tubes runnin’ medication down my ears, and I took speech therapy until I was eight or nine years old. So I didn’t get a chance to just branch out like most kids do.”

Even so, music — and football – still dominated his youth. His interest in music began in church.

“When they had choir practice,” Ra’Shad remembers, “the church’s guitar player, Billy Evans, might as well have been my babysitter. He’d sit me on his knee or be sittin’ beside me. That’s why I fell in love with the guitar.”

He picked it up for the first time at age 16. And he was such a quick learner that Evans soon invited him to sit in when he played during services. “And we still kick it together today,” Ra’Shad notes. Another friend, Greg Cooley – now a bassist in a gospel group, would often drop by the house and play with him, too.

A man with far-ranging musical interests, Ra’Shad admits that when the Los Lonely Boys’ eponymous first CD came out, he literally played along with it “until it didn’t play anymore.” And he’s always loved the way John Mayer could be soulful one minute and rock out the next. As for Ra’Shad’s neighbors, their taste in music – especially the blues – is far different that most of the rest of Mississippi.

“In the Pine Belt, we have a little state within the state,” he says. “Clarksdale is about four hours from me. So, when a lot of people ask me ‘who’s your influence…it’s hard to explain. I’m two hours from New Orleans, two hours from Jackson – where Malaco and all that blues comes from – and two hours from Mobile. So you got Mardi Gras, you got jazz and soul music all within 80 miles.”

The local scene is distinctly different from what’s happening in the Delta.

“No disrespect to B.B. King, but I didn’t grow up on no B.B. King,” Ra’Shad notes. “My dad played Albert Collins, O.V. Wright, Bobby Bland, Buddy Guy, Lucky Peterson, Little Milton…he played Little Milton backwards and forwards. It was that soul side of blues not the Delta.

“The thing is…blues is like a house. Your master bedroom may Delta, your kitchen Texas-style blues, your living room soul blues and whatever. It all depends on what room you want to walk in.”

Once Muddy Waters electrified it, it hasn’t been the same, he adds. But one thing’s for sure: It doesn’t matter who’s playing it or where they come from, the blues is the blues in no matter what form it takes.

Country to the bone, Ra’Shad grew up helping his dad – who lives on one side of town — raise and train German shepherds. An avid horseman today, he also used to muck out stables for a farmer on the other side of town, where his mom lives, in order to get the chance to ride. He’s also an avid fisherman and ’coon and rabbit hunter who takes advantage of his surroundings whenever he can, noting: “I like to put a balance in my universe because of the way I’ve been taught.”

Major blues stars played Laurel back in the day…almost all of them giants in Southern soul, a branch of music that sprouted from the blues tree when Malaco launched in the ’60s.

Like Ra’Shad’s Pine Belt neighbor, Mr. Sipp, and Eddie Cotton today, all of their artists perform in a more polished style that included horns and keys, producing music that incorporates the sounds emanating from Memphis, Chicago and Detroit but is totally their own. It build a huge audience  among people of color in the late ’60s and beyond when folks in the big cities in the North and elsewhere turned their backs on mainstream blues, which they labeled as race music because of its origin in the cottonfields and labeling it as race music.

“My mom lived right across the street from the fairgrounds,” Ra’Shad remembers. “And me and my brother – he’s seven years older than me — would sneak through a hole in the fence to see Denise LaSalle, Peggy Scott-Adams, Shield Potts-Wright, Johnnie Taylor, Tyrone Davis and Marvin Sease.

“My mom and her friends and my uncle would sit out in her yard, grill up and listen to the show. It was so loud, it was just like you were there.”

In Laurel, however, like most places across the South, the old-school sounds had a life, too.

Go downtown and you’d often find a solitary picker outside the drugstore, and there’d frequently be one, too, at the local rib joint, a hotspot that Ra’Shad’s grandmother launched decades ago, handed down to her son and is now run by Ra’Shad and his family and includes a portable kitchen, which they haul to festivals in the region and do double duty, feeding and entertaining the masses.

As a teenager, Ra’Shad was a force to be reckoned with on the football field. An all-stater, he achieved a feat that’s nearly impossible…successfully completing a block 97 percent of the time the center snapped the ball. He earned a scholarship to play at Jackson State University, where he was following in his father’s footsteps by studying elementary education

Unfortunately, however, he dropped out of school after suffering a severe knee injury that required months of rehabilitation. It was somewhat of a blessing, though. His family needed him because his mother had just undergone major neck surgery, was unable to care for herself and his siblings, all of whom are much older, couldn’t be there during the day

“I sat out in the yard and played my acoustic guitar,” Ra’Shad remembers. “Somebody’d throw in a dollar (in the tip jar)…I’d get me 50 or 75 bucks and I’d grab me another tattoo.”

He must have done pretty well because his body sports 13 of them today.

Ra’Shad’s biggest influence in the blues came from the late L.C. Ulmer. A Delta-trained multi-instrumentalist, Ulmer was born in Jasper County, Miss., a short drive to the north, but spent a large portion of his life living in the Chicago area, where he played with J.B. Lenoir, Howlin’ Wolf, Buddy Guy, Hound Dog Taylor, Jimmy Reed and others. He’s featured prominently in the 2008 documentary, M Is for Mississippi: A Road Trip Through the Birthplace of the Blues.

In 2001, Ulmer returned South, settling in Ellisville, Miss.,  stone’s throw southwest of Ra’Shad’s home. They met one afternoon when L.C. was playing at the Saturday farmer’s market in downtown Laurel.

“He played guitar, and he had an old collard green can with a harmonica in it,” Ra’Shad recalls. “He was fascinatin’, and I’d just stand by Mr. Ulmer while mom shopped – so he was another one of my babysitters (chuckles). I was tryin’ to start a band, and we’d go and have a glass at his house and practice.

“He would always fuss, sayin’: ‘Man, you can’t play real blues with a pick.’ And I can say the old man was almost right because – to keep that bass goin’ with your thumb and keep your fingers workin’, playin’ that melody – it’s extremely hard to do with a pick.”

Ra’Shad and L.C. – who passed in 2016 at age 87 — would perform together regularly through his final years, teaching his protégé by example rather than lessons. “I’d ask: ‘Mr. Ulmer, what you gonna teach me today.’ And he’s say: ‘I ain’t teachin’ nothin’. We’re gonna play!’

“Mr. Ulmer taught me to showboat. He was a little bitty guy who wore overalls, a captain’s hat with a bandana tied around his neck. And he’d be playin’ that guitar and jump up, grab the harmonica…play the guitar between his legs and shake his butt. He was somethin’ else.”

However, he did instill great advice regarding the business side of music…“to put something on that paper”…to take care of copyrights, contracts and mechnicals…“so you can make a million dollars like B.B. King” — along with advice to “stay healthy and play the hell outta that guitar.”

Ra’Shad calls himself “the Blues Kid” today in honor of Ulmer and the way he always used to rib him whenever they met.

“He used to say: ‘How old you is now?’” Ra’Shad recalls. “‘You bigger than I is.’ I’d tell him, and he’d say: ‘You in your 20s and you ain’t grown a mustache yet?’ I didn’t have a beard or mustache. I was approachin’ 30 years old, and I didn’t have any facial hair – somethin’ my band still picks on me for.

“They run and get haircuts and stuff before the show. And I’m like…I get one probably every three weeks or so. I don’t really have to shave and everything else. I do it at the beginnin’ of the month and it’s the end of the month before I have to tidy up again.

“So I guess I’m still the baby.

“That’s kinda how I got the ‘Blues Kid’ name. When Mr. Ulmer died in 2016, I decided to keep that name. I use Ra’Shad because I don’t like to be called Larry Jr. I’m 6-feet-4 and 340 pounds, and my dad’s 5-foot-somethin’.”

Another influence and occasional playing partner today is another Ellisville resident, Tommy “T-Bone” Pruitt, He’s still performing at the rib shack at age 97. The former owner of The Blue Poodle juke joint, he regales Ra’Shad with stories about playing rhythm guitar behind both Bo Diddley and Tina Turner. He claims that he invented the first gas-can guitar and that Bo stole it from him.

“Once he sees me in the crowd,” Ra’Shad says, “he starts wavin’, and I automatically know to go get my guitar. He’ll say: ‘I’ll play rhythm, and you play al-l-l the solos.’ I tell ’em: ‘I don’t even know this stuff.’

“It’s always fun to play with him. Mr. Pruitt, he knows how to talk to a crowd. When I started playin’, he’d always say: ‘Man, you’re playin’ too many songs. You gotta talk to them people! See what they want…see how they feel. Do they wanna party, or do they wanna sit and listen?’

“That’s what I do now because every audience is different.”

Ra’Shad was 23 when he and several friends from school formed his first group, The Groove Band. It’s wasn’t unusual for visiting artists to arrive in town without a backing unit and want to hire one – something everyone in the group was aware of because most of the members lived by the fairgrounds, where the artists performed. They got together to practice in hope that they’d pick up some gigs, and their plan paid off in spades.

When his dad found out, Ra’Shad says, “he threatened to have a heart attack!” In truth, though, both of his folks have supported his choice through the years.

“It all started at a Mother’s Day blues show,” Ra’Shad remembers. “We were basically an instrumental band. Then I started booking us at horse rides (horseback riding tours – a popular event through the region) and things like that. We ended up backing a lot of people on the Southern soul circuit: LaMorris Williams, L.J. and Krishunda Echols and J.T. Darnell.

“We were gettin’ a big reputation, and ended up openin’ Club Memories in Hattiesburg,” a showroom that bills itself as the No. 1 party spot in the Pine Belt, where top stars like O.B. Buchana, Miss Jody and the rosters of Ecko and Malaco Records hold court.

“And by that time, my good buddy J Wonn (now a star himself) was comin’ up, met him at the Waffle House one day, and then I toured with him a while.”

Next up, he started working with Louisiana native Kenne Wayne, who’d just scored a big hit with the zydeco-infused tune, “Ride It Like a Cowboy,” before heading back to the trail riding scene again.

Ra’Shad eventually became a vocalist, but it came about by necessity. The bandleader he was working with at the time was delayed by car trouble one night and couldn’t make the start of his show. Luckily, however, Ra’Shad, who’d been providing backup, knew all the lyrics, took the lead on the mic that night and hasn’t looked back since.

He dropped his first record, the single “Shake It,” in 2017. Based on a real-life experience, it described being in a 25-and-over club for the first time and ladies telling him they could tell he was “fresh meat.” He recorded the video for it at Buckey’s Place, a tiny pool hall in Heidelberg, where his dad taught school, and critics subsequently praised his voice as sounding somewhat like Buchana and the late Lee “Shot” Williams, a longtime soul-blues mainstay in Chicago.

His first album, Country Soul, followed shortly thereafter and contained tunes that touched on zydeco, his trail-ride life and more. Featuring several duets, L.J. Echols and Napoleon Demps made guest appearances along with J Wonn and Stevie J Blues. It was a treat, he remembers, to bring in Demps from his hometown in Michigan, feed him pork chops, collard greens, fried okra and cornbread and teach him what trail-riding is all about.

Ra’Shad subsequently purchased equipment and set up an at-home mini recording studio. It proved to be a timely decision because, in the middle of the COVID epidemic in 2021, it enabled him to release his next two CDs simultaneously.

It was a scary time for him. “When they closed the borders,” he recalls, “I was overseas in Delemont, Switzerland. I had 18 hours to get on a plane or else I woulda been stuck there for who knows how long. My parents all went to panicking, and I was a nervous wreck!”

The first disc, Southern Side of Soul was a star-studded set that included Demps, Stevie J along with Laurel native Ju Evans while the second, Bluz Me, was something entirely different. Following a suggestion by his mother that he needed to “target people my age,” he delivered a disc with originals that were influenced by Little Milton, Albert King, Tyrone Davis and others but still maintained a taste of home – a style of music he brands now as Pine Belt blues.

“I wanted folks to hear the difference between blues and Southern soul,” he says. It’s a desire that stems from an interview with a radio deejay who couldn’t understand why Ra’Shad’s live performances sounded so different than his records. The work to produce both was a challenge.

“Bein’ a ‘baby’ myself, it was difficult,” he notes. “I’d just bought the studio and was tryin’ to play and track the stuff…get a good feel…an’ then call a buddy to play on it, too. It was kinda hard to work ’cause nobody was around.

“And even if they were, all my producers come from Southern soul and gospel, so all of their blues knowledge and teaching comes from me. So I tried to be correct as possible. It’s the blues and soul…and throw a little church in there. You put ketchup and hot sauce on it…now you got it!”

One tune from that set, “Revolution,” subsequently earned a nomination for an Underground Southern Soul Award in the social conscience category for its topical lyrics, which dealt with the George Floyd killing and more.

Ever since, Ra’Shad’s found a sweet spot in the music…a balance between both worlds.

In 2023, the Jus’ Blues Foundation nominated him for its B.B. King of the Blues award. In 2024, he was inducted into the Alabama Blues Hall of Fame because of frequent appearances in that state. He also appeared at the Chicago Blues Festival and played Buddy Guy’s Legends, where one of Buddy’s employees turned out to be his mom’s neighbor.

And earlier this year, he and his band placed second in the International Blues Challenge, where his harmonica player, Jock Webb Sr., picked up the silver prize in the Lee Oskar Awards, too.

His latest album, the recently released Live in Clarkdale, was captured at Morgan Freeman’s Ground Zero nightclub and seamlessly merges Delta and country blues with Southern Soul and more with a lineup that includes Webb, guitarists Christopher Gillard and Pierre Bramlett, keyboard player Gabriel Spells, bassist Omari Jones and drummer Devin James and backing vocals from Tyler Criglar and Jadarion Taylor.

Full of homespun messages delivered straight from the heart, it kicks off with “Feel Alright,” which finds Ra’Shad opening his eyes in the morning and washing his face – unsure of what challenges he’ll face in the day ahead. “Juke Joint” urges everyone to party because that’s the reason he’s there while other pleasers include “Bad Girl,” which describes a woman who drives him crazy, “That’s What You Are,” which celebrates her for the sunshine she brings on a cloudy day, “Singing the Blues,” which reveals the woman’s been cheating, the funky  “Hey Baby,” which insists he still wants to “rock her for the rest of your life,” and the juke joint anthem, “Hey Y’all.”

Ra’Shad’s a busy, busy man.

“I’m a ballplayer, a coach’s son and a player myself,” he says. “And I believe in hard work. If I could get the best out of dogs and horses, I can get the best out of myself. That’s the mentality I wake up with every day. Like my dad says, every day is the fourth quarter.”

Later this month, he’ll be appearing at a bookstore in Jackson along with Zac Harman, Dexter Allen, Eddie Cotton, Chad Wesley and other top talents to help launch Juketown USA, a multi-media project created by the Preston law firm. It includes a book, a film documentary and a CD, all of which celebrate the city’s rich history. He’s also going to pop up in an episode of HGTV’s Home Town that was filmed in Laurel and in which he plays the original tune, “Juke,” from the new album.

Then he hits the road for the Back Home Again Festival in Yazoo City, Miss., shows at the National Blues Museum in St. Louis and Ground Zero in Biloxi, more shows across Mississippi and an appearance at the City Winery in St. Louis, too.

Check out Ra’Shad’s music and find out where he’s playing next by visiting his website:www.rtbkblues.com.