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Melrose, who contracted the many Chicago based blues artistes on the label. 2 years
later he recorded with John Lee again, and in the same year cut 4 sides with Big Maceo,
by then stricken as a result of a stroke, which also featured Tampa Red on guitar.

At last, in April 1947, Melrose gave Eddie the chance to record under his own name
(or at least as ‘Little’ Eddie Boyd), backed by J. T. Brown’s Boogie Band (I recall that
J. T. played with Elmore James), including Willie Dixon on bass. But, Melrose didn’t
believe Eddie’s piano playing was up to the job, so he was just a featured vocalist.

However, only 3 weeks later Eddie recorded some fine piano backing Jazz Gillum. He
had a further 4 unreleased (at the time) Victor sessions under his own name between
1947 and 1949, but his deal then lapsed, so

he signed for the Regal label, and issued a
single, incorrectly named as Ernie Boyd, in Leonard Chess
1950. He also recorded 2 titles for the JOB

label, in June 1950, but again neither were
released at the time (‘Hard Headed Woman’
was finally issued 30 years later!)

In late 1951 he cut 4 sides for Chess, but not
for release under his own name. According to
Eddie, Leonard Chess said to him “I record

you to get some songs for my boy. You don’t
have no talent, you can’t sing, you can’t play.
I’ll record this stuff and pay you for it, then
give it to my boy” - who, by the way, was

Muddy Waters! Eddie was very quick to point
out that he owned the copyright to the songs,
and refused to allow them to be given to

Muddy, or anyone else. Consequently, the
sides were not released, and very disheartened by his experiences, Eddie put his full
time music career on the back burner, and went back to manual work and weekend
gigs.

This situation did not last too long, because Eddie had decided to save up the money
to fund his own recording, paying the musicians union rates and booking the studio

himself. ‘Five Long Years’ was partly based on his working life in the steel mills, and
was backed by ‘Blue Coat Man’. He persuaded label boss Joe Brown to release it on
the JOB label, in 1952, and within a month it took off in Memphis and Chicago -

eventually topping the R&B charts. A follow up on JOB never happened because his
relationship with Brown soured, but another label owner, Al Benson, asked him to
record for his label, which he did, with ‘Cool Kind Treatment’. However, unbeknownst
to Eddie, Benson sold his contract to Chess - the same label that thought he had no

talent! This time, Chess did let him record in his own name for release, and he
produced ‘24 Hours’, which proved to be another sizeable hit.