Lubbock Legend Junior Medlow Will Finally Be Honored This Thursday

Lubbock music used to be heavily steeped in blues.

All of the locals seemed to be influenced by the blues back in the day. Even the country and punk rock that were around always seemed to have a bit of blues to hit. At that same time there was one man who though young, was the touchtone, the authentic, the real deal, and that was Junior Medlow.

Junior Medlow was a bit more than blues though. While the other bands came at it from a rock or southern perspective, Junior brought the funk. It wasn't a highly polished variety, but more of a gritty, in-the-trenches version that could melt you on the spot.

Junior joined the white-hot band The Cobras (which for some time also featured a young Stevie Ray Vaughan) in Austin and also spent time with blues-rocker Chris Duarte in a group called "Junior Medlow and the Bad Boys". Junior was a jam night stalwart and a legend among his peers.

It's rumored that Junior was at least a little responsible for one of the Rolling Stones's biggest hits. The story goes that Junior was performing with Lubbock's Bobby Keyes and Keys gave the demo tape to someone in the Stones organization, and The Stones covered the song "Harlem Shuffle" on their next album. I'm not confident enough in this story to put it on a Wikipedia page, but I've heard it over and over (and what can you do when someone else covers your cover?).

If you want to really know who Junior was, consider this; while being treated for cancer in the hospital, Junior apparently snuck out to go out and jam (again, this is a legend, but I'm inclined to believe it's true).

Around our office, we knew Junior Medlow as Larry Williams who still has family that works with us to this day. On behalf of all of us, the people who kept his legend alive on Facebook, and everyone else who ever spent a hot and sweaty jam night with Junior, we'd like to say thank you for including him in Civic Lubbock's Walk Of Fame ceremonies this Thursday night.