Obituary: James Cotton, Blues Harmonica Legend, Dies at 81

Газета 401

(Link to full story on newspaper's Web site.)

In preparation for our class discussion, consider these questions:

• What are the traditional elements of a newspaper obituary? Are those elements all included in this particular article?
• What will you remember from this article?
• What parts of the article were the most informative or interesting for you? What were the least interesting?
• Were there any aspects of the story that you feel were insufficiently covered? What questions might you have for the reporter?

Useful words and phrases:

an integral part
tenure
call and response
curiously, curiously enough
to embark on/upon
bills, billing, sharing bills
act (noun)
raucous
stint
under his/her/their own name
sharecropper
to take up
small change
in the employ of
to span, spanning
prowess
harp
common parlance
label
accolades
to induct, to be inducted
survived by
array
luminary

Here is James Cotton playing with the Rolling Stones' Keith Richards a few years ago, during a rehearsal for a benefit concert for fellow blues musician Hubert Sumlin:



... And finally, a photo I took of Hubert Sumlin and James Cotton about ten years ago: