Branch, William Earl Billy
(*1951)
Branch, William Earl Billy 3 October 1951; Great Lakes Naval Hospital (north of Chicago), IL In spite of his continued importance on the Chicago blues scene, Branch was actually raised in Southern California, and only returned to Chicago in the late 1960s to attend the University of Illinois as a political science major. Inspired by Willie Dixon, Junior Wells and other performers at the Grant Park blues festival in 1969, Branch soon abandoned political science in favor of blues harmonica…