Doctor Ross
Isaiah Ross (October 21, 1925 – May 28, 1993), known as Doctor Ross, was an American blues musician who usually performed as a one-man band, simultaneously singing and playing guitar, harmonica, and drums. Ross’s primal style has been compared to John Lee Hooker, Blind Boy Fuller and Sonny Boy Williamson I.
Charles Isaiah Ross was born on October 21, 1925, in the Mississippi Delta town of Tunica, Mississippi, one of eleven children in a farming family of mixed African-American and Native American heritage. His first instrument was the harmonica, which he learned to play at age nine. Ross served in the United States Army from 1943 to 1948 in the Pacific Theater, and again from 1950 to 1951. He married shortly after leaving the army. During his service, Ross had accrued a collection of army medical books which, along with his habit of carrying his harmonicas in a doctor’s bag, earned him the nickname “Doctor Ross.”