Bob Stroger

Bob Stroger is another of the living blues legends who had already visited Hondarribia, but this time he is returning to our festival to celebrate the 10th anniversary and to pick up the Hondarribia Blues Award for his career.

Bob Stroger was born in the small town of Haiti, in the South East Missouri, where he lived on a farm. He moved to Chicago in 1955 and lived in the back of a night club where Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters used to play. Listening and looking at them having fun, he decided to start playing music too.

He learned from his brother-in-law, Johnny Ferguson, who played with his band called The Twisters.

Bob started his band with his cousin Ralph Ramey and his brother, who started playing music in a club where Memphis Slim worked. He played in different bands; however, he didn’t succeed since he started playing with Rufus Forman and Eddie King. The name of the band was Eddie King and The King´s Men, they played for 15 years but then they moved away and created a new band called Eddie King, Babee May and The Blues Machine. Stronger decided to play alone for two years, after this time Jessie Green, Eddie King and Babee May and The Blues Machine invited him to play the bass guitar.