Finis Tasby (February 1, 1939 – November 2, 2014)* was a Los Angeles based blues singer and front man for the group The Mannish Boys.
Although he recorded his first nationally distributed full-length album whilst in his 60’s, Los Angeles-based singer and songwriter Finis Tasby was no spring chicken in the blues world. Tasby had been singing in the Los Angeles area for years, and for years before that in Dallas.
His mother named him Finis because he was the last of her ten children! While in his teens, he played drums for a local band called The Blues Blasters. He formed a band called the Thunderbirds in Dallas in 1962. While working with the Thunderbirds, Tasby played bass and sang backup vocals behind legendary blues singer-songwriter Z.Z. Hill. Hill eventually secured a recording contract, as did Hill's replacement, Joe Simon.
From the mid-1960s, Tasby led the band, delivering lead vocals and playing bass. When not touring under their own name, the Thunderbirds backed up the likes of Clarence Carter, Lowell Fulson and Freddie King with whom they toured regionally throughout Texas and Oklahoma until 1972.
After leaving Freddie King's Band Finis moved to Los Angeles in 1973 where he was a motor mechanic by day and worked the blues clubs at night. He started a group in LA and opened for artists including B.B. King, Percy Mayfield and Big Mama Thornton.
Tasby recorded several singles in the 1970s and '80s: "Get Drunk and Be Somebody," in 1978, and "Blues Mechanic," a 1985 release for Ace Records. Tasby also landed an acting role in the film Sharkey's Machine with Burt Reynolds, all the while playing regularly around L.A. blues clubs with his own Finis Tasby Band. Most recently, three of Tasby's songs from his Shanachie Records debut, People Don't Care (1995), were featured in the mid-1990s film The Babysitter.
In 1995 he released his debut album, People Don’t Care, which surprisingly was not a commercial success. The album had legs, and potential with the movie "The Babysitter" using 4 songs off the album in that movie starring Alicia Silverstone. And a CD release party at the Hollywood House of Blues as well as a featured night at Universal City Walk's BB Kings Club. The album had guest artists including Lowell Fulson, Mick Taylor, Elvin Bishop and Vernon Reed. In 1998 he released Jump Children. This album did better and had guitarists Kid Ramos and Rick Holmstrom, bassist Larry Taylor and drummer Richard Innes.
In the late 1990s, Tasby began an association with Rand Chortkoff who produced his album, Jump Children. That association would lead to Tasby being the front man for The Mannish Boys which was creation of Chortkoff. The Mannish Boys were nominated numerous times for blues awards. The group's album Double Dynamite received the Traditional blues album of the year award.
In 2005, he released his album What My Blues are All About. He also appeared at the Topanga Canyon Blues Festival in Topanga, California. In 2006, he came to Australia and appeared with guitarist Enrico Crivellaro at the Australian Blues Music Festival.
After recording his last album Snap Your Fingers with Kid Andersen, he suffered a massive stroke on December 2012 which paralyzed his left side. He then resided at a long term care facility in California where he died in November 2014, aged 75.
(Edited from AllMusic &Wikipedia) (*There is some confusion over his birth details, depending on which source is referenced. One year quoted is 1939, and that he was born on February 1, in Dallas Texas United States. Another states that he was born in 1940 in Nevada).