Morris Pejoe
American musician (1924–1982)
Morris Pejas (April 11, 1924 – July 27, 1982), billed professionally as Morris Pejoe was an American Chicago blues singer, guitarist, and songwriter. He released a string of singles in the 1950s and 1960s, but saw many of his recordings go unreleased over that period.
Life and career
He was born in Palmetto, Louisiana, United States. He began his career in music playing the violin and absorbed the major music traditions from Louisiana, being cajun and zydeco. In 1949, he relocated to Beaumont, Texas, where he also switched to playing the guitar rather than violin. He was inspired by the playing of Texan-based guitarists Lightnin' Hopkins, T-Bone Walker, and especially Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown. A jump blues formatting then stayed as a factor in Pejoe's work. He met up with the pianist Henry Gray, who remained his regular musical sideman until the mid-1960s. The two moved to Chicago, Illinois in 1951, looking for more regular outlets for their playing and career development. Pejoe also befriended another pianist, Otis Spann, who also worked with Pejoe until Spann joined Muddy Waters band in 1953.
The public source identifies “Morris Pejoe” as american musician (1924–1982). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Morris, Pejoe and American.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1948522. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1924, 1982, 1949 and 1951.
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This entry incorporates text from “Morris Pejoe” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.