Robert Percell Ferguson (May 9, 1929 – November 26, 2006), who performed as H-Bomb Ferguson, was an American jump blues singer. He was an early pioneer of the rock and roll style of the mid-1950s, featuring driving rhythm, intensely shouted vocals, honking tenor saxophone solos, and outlandish personal appearance. Ferguson sang and played piano in a flamboyant style, wearing colorful wigs.
Bobby Ferguson was the 11th of twelve children born to Irene and Reverend Alonzo Ferguson. At age six, he began playing piano in his father's store front Baptist church. Deciding that the boy had talent, the Reverend paid for piano lessons for his son, demanding that he stuck to sacred melodies on the 88s. Ferguson had other ideas, recalling "After church was over, while the people was all standing outside talking, me and my friends would run back inside and I'd play the blues on the piano.”
At the age of 19, Ferguson was on the road with Joe Liggins and the Honeydrippers. They moved to New York, where Ferguson branched off on his own, getting a gig at the nightclub Baby Grand Club in Harlem, billed as "The Cobra Kid." A blues shouter, he first recorded as Bob Ferguson in New York in 1950, for Derby Records, whose drummer Jack "The Bear" Parker (according to most sources) gave him the nickname "H-Bomb" and became his manager. His debut was followed by releases on Atlas and Prestige, before he signed a recording contract with Savoy Records in 1951. Several saxophone-driven singles followed, in the style of Wynonie Harris, and "Good Lovin'" was regionally successful though failing to reached the national charts.
Unique as the name was, H-Bomb was pushed to imitate the blues shouter style of Wynonie Harris. They were often paired in billing, with on stage antics of H-Bomb mimicking Wynonie. Though they were closely associated, they were not close, and H-Bomb lobbied to be able to create his own style. About his early recordings, H-Bomb says: "They were going for a big band sound. I always loved the sax. Bass, piano, and four horns were used. And I played with some of the best! Guitar played a minor part. I wasn't playing piano in most of these recordings. At the time, they said my voice came out much better if I stood at the mike and didn't play the piano."
H-Bomb made the circuit of regional clubs, singing and telling jokes in vaudeville tradition. He worked with Ruth Brown, Clarence ""Gatemouth" Brown, Willis "Gatortail" Jackson and Bullmoose Jackson, and did comedy with Redd Foxx. After nine years in New York City, Ferguson moved to Cincinnati in 1957 and signed with King Records. He formed his own band, "H-Bomb Ferguson and his Mad Lads", and quickly became a regional favourite. He was now honing his own style, away from Wynonie Harris, with funky piano. Popular singles on Federal (King's subsidiary) were "Mary, Little Mary" and especially "Midnight Ramblin' Tonight", which has been reissued on many compilations. But these would be his final releases for some 25 years, though he kept travelling and performing throughout the 1960s.
After a short retirement in the '70s during which he drove a garbage truck, H-Bomb found that he could not quit the music business, and came out in his now renowned wigs. A new persona with each set! Among his international stellar performances are : Blues Estafette Holland (Utrecht) in 1988 and 1991. He performed two encore performance at '92 Chicago Blues Festival, The British R & B Festival Colne, Lancashire, England 1994, Lugano (Switzerland) Blues To Bop Festival in 1993 and 1994 and Rhythm Riot Festival in Rye, East Sussex (UK) in November 2001. In 2005 he performed at the 4th Ponderosa Stomp.
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H-Bomb returned to the recording studio in 1985 for two singles on the Radiation label and backed by his new band, The Medicine Men, waxed his first album in 1993, "Wiggin' Out" for Chicago's Earwig label. It showed him to be as wild as ever. His Savoy recordings were collected on an LP in 1986 ("Life Is Hard", Savoy Jazz SJL 1176). His early work was featured in a compilation album, H-Bomb Ferguson: Big City Blues, 1951-54. A documentary was made of his life, entitled The Life And Times Of H-Bomb Ferguson. He got the Cammy Lifetime Achievement Award March 9, 2003.
H-Bomb became a regular on the blues and R&B festival circuit, keeping Cincinnati as his home base until two weeks prior to his death during 2006 at the Hospice of Cincinnati, of complications from emphysema and cardiopulmonary disease, aged 77.
(Edited from This Is My Story & Wikipedia)