Joseph ‘Mighty Joe’ Young; Pioneering Blues Guitarist

Blues guitarist Joseph “Mighty Joe” Young, who helped introduce the musical form to mainstream America, has died. He was 71.

Young died March 24 of complications after spinal surgery at Northwestern University Hospital. He had hoped the surgery would restore feeling to his fingers and allow him to play the guitar after a 13-year hiatus.

Born in Shreveport, La., Young lived in Milwaukee and Los Angeles, where he was an amateur boxer in the 1940s. “It was nothing to write home about,” Young once said of his fighting career. “I decided that music was the best thing to do.”

He began playing in the early 1950s, working clubs in Milwaukee and then back in his native Louisiana before moving to Chicago. There, he helped bring blues to young, primarily white audiences on the city’s north side, where the blues scene is still thriving today.

Complications from surgery on a pinched nerve in his neck in 1986 left Young without enough feeling in his fingers to play the guitar, but he was undeterred by the setback.

“When I first had the surgery, I said, ‘Hey, I’m not gonna let that stop me. I’ll keep trying,’ ” Young said some years ago. “And I’ll still keep trying. I don’t give up.” Although unable to play guitar, he made appearances as a singer and released his final album in 1997, “Mighty Man,” under the Blind Pig Records label.

Earlier this year, he decided to undergo another round of surgery on his spinal cord in the hopes that it would allow him to regain feeling in his fingers. But Young developed pneumonia after the surgery.

“He really missed the guitar,” veteran Chicago producer Gene Barge told the Chicago Sun-Times. “And that’s what killed him. He went for an operation to try to get the feeling back in his hands.”

Young is survived by his wife, Ann, four children, three stepchildren and several grandchildren.