H-Bomb Ferguson

Robert Percell Ferguson was born on 9 May 1929 in Charleston County, South Carolina. He was the eleventh of twelve children.

His Baptist preacher father, Reverend Alonzo Ferguson, paid for piano lessons for his son, on the condition that he stick to sacred melodies. But by the age of 19, Bobby was on the road with Joe Liggins & the Honeydrippers.

When the band arrived in New York, Ferguson branched off on his own, singing as “the Cobra Kid” at Harlem’s Baby Grand Club.

Gaining a reputation as a blues shouter (and now nicknamed ‘H-Bomb’), he recorded singles with Derby, Atlas, and Prestige records before hooking up with Savoy Records in 1952 for a series of recordings.

Most of them were obvious Wynonie Harris knockoffs, but eminently swinging ones with top-flight backing.

Ferguson eventually settled in Cincinnati, where he recorded for Finch, Big Bang, ARC, and Federal in 1960.

H-Bomb stopped touring in the early ’70s but made several comebacks, notably performing at blues festivals in Britain and Europe during the 1980s and 1990s in a characteristically flamboyant style, wearing a variety of multicoloured fright wigs.

Ferguson recorded his long-overdue debut album, Wiggin’ Out, in 1993.

He died at the age of 77 in 2006 at the Hospice of Cincinnati, of complications from emphysema and cardiopulmonary disease.