Blues guitarist Robert Ward, nicknamed "The King of the Magnatone" for his inspired use of the amplifier's unique sound, passed away on Christmas day at the age of 70 years old. Ward had suffered from health issues for years, including a stroke in 2001.
Born in poverty in rural Georgia, Ward first picked up the guitar at the age of ten, inspired by the records he heard from blues artists like B.B. King and Muddy Waters. After a hitch in the Army, Ward returned home in 1959 and joined his first band. Unsatisfied, he moved to Ohio in 1960 and formed the Ohio Untouchables, which would later become the Ohio Players after Ward's departure in 1965.
The Untouchables recorded a string of early-60s singles for various indie labels, each song featuring Ward's amazing vibrato-soaked fretwork. The band backed Wilson Pickett and the Falcons on the sessions that yielded their 1962 hit "I Found A Love." After leaving the Untouchables, Ward would record a number of singles for labels like Groove City.
During the 1970s Ward worked as a session musician for Motown Records, playing behind virtually all of the Detroit-based soul label's artists, including hitmakers like the Temptations and Undisputed Truth. When his wife died in 1977, though, Ward hit upon hard times and would return to Georgia where he disappeared for a while.
In 1990 Ward re-emerged with a label deal with Black Top Records, delivering the soul-blues classic Fear No Evil. Ward would subsequently record three more albums for the label during the 1990s with varying results, and in 1995 a collection of his early-60s work titled Hot Stuff was released by Relic Records. In 2000, Ward signed with Delmark Records, which released his final album, New Role Soul, to critical acclaim.
An underrated vocalist and songwriter, Ward has come to be recognized as a skilled and imaginative blues and soul guitarist whose talents helped create some of the classic music of the 1960s and '70s.
Photo courtesy Delmark Records
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