Robert Finley

Robert Finley came to recording late, and the delay shows: his voice carries decades of gigging, and his guitar moves easily between blues and Southern soul. Born in Bernice, Louisiana, in 1954, he taught himself on a thrift-store guitar at eleven, learning gospel quartets by sitting at the front and watching their fingers. Army service in Germany, meant to train him as a helicopter technician, instead saw him leading a band's guitar and touring Europe. Back home he busked, led a gospel group and worked as a carpenter until failing eyesight ended that trade.

In 2015 Music Maker Relief Foundation, a non-profit supporting blues musicians, found him busking before a gig in Arkansas, and tours with Robert Lee Coleman and Alabama Slim followed. His debut, Age Don't Mean a Thing, arrived on Big Legal Mess Records in September 2016, recorded in Memphis with members of the Bo-Keys and praised for its Southern soul. Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys produced Goin' Platinum! on Easy Eye Sound in 2017 and Sharecropper's Son in 2021, while Black Bayou followed in 2023 and Hallelujah! Don't Let The Devil Fool Ya, backed by his daughter Christy Johnson, in October 2025.