NATCHEZ &8212;In the mid 1970s radio audiences would have tuned in to Natchez&8217;s WNAT for the sounds of B.B. King, Bobby Rush and the like.

But they all knew of Soul Man Lee.

&8220;They all knew me,&8221; said the 72-year &8212; old Natchez native. &8220;I was the voice of Natchez.&8221;

Prior to spinning records for Natchez&8217;s blues and disco crowds Soul Man Lee &8212; or Jimmy Anderson &8212; had entertained the previous generation under a different name and saw fame as far away as Europe.

Anderson returned to Natchez in 1969 after living the life of a Baton Rouge blues man, serenading crowds with his harmonica in the juke joints of Baton Rouge and other towns in the mixture of water and woods of east Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi.

The son of sharecroppers, Anderson was born in 1934 and began playing the harmonica at the age of 8. He mastered the instrument with ease, entertaining customers at a friends snowball wagon.

&8220;That&8217;s how I started off.

There was blues in Natchez at the Cross Key Club, that&8217;s about it,&8221; he said. &8220;No big names traveled through but they did have a band by the name of Earl Lee. They had horns, and played mostly jazz and blues together.&8221;

The Cross Keys Club was a nightclub located on St. Catherine Street near the intersection of Martin Luther King Jr. Street.

&8220;Then I was inspired by Jimmy Reed,&8221; Anderson wrote in a 1992 submission to Juke Blues magazine. &8220;I tried to sound like him.

I learned the low parts of the harmonica and the &8216;squeal&8217; as they call it.

&8220;Back then we didn&8217;t have TV and the local radio didn&8217;t play the blues.

At night I would listen to WDIA out of Memphis and they would play all the old blues by Smokey Hogg, Muddy Waters, Lightnin&8217; Slim, Howlin&8217; Wolf, all sorts of music like that.

&8220;We&8217;d get around the radio just like the kids do around the TV today. There was no electricity and the radio was battery operated.&8221;

Anderson moved to Baton Rouge at the age of 25 to find employment. Something that wasn&8217;t easy to come by in Natchez, he said.

Anderson found work with soft drink companies. He later put together a band, Jimmy Anderson and the Joy Jumpers, with two guitar players, a drummer and Jimmy would sing and play the harmonica. Associating with blues legends such as Lightnin&8217; Slim, Silas Hogan, and Slim Harpo, the band recorded their first record, I Wanna Boogie, in early 1962 with their second, Naggin&8217;, coming at the end of the year on the Crowley music label of Baton Rouge.

Naggin&8217; made it to Europe where it gained fame and allow Anderson to participate in blues tours in Austria, Holland and London.

Anderson recorded a total of 15 records between 1962 and 1964 before disputes with his label over royalties left a bitter taste on his appetite for the music business.

He still performed with other blues acts of the area for the next seven years or so before returning to Natchez. Here he became a policeman and later added disc jockeying to his talents.

&8220;I wanted a name for myself so I played the song Soul Man as my intro and I called myself Soul Man Lee,&8221; he said. &8220;No one in Natchez other than about five other people knew my real name.&8221;

Anderson left WNAT in the early 1980s due to disputes with the stations program directors, he said. He then played country music at Centerville&8217;s WZZB FM/WSSL AM.

Working in radio for the next 10 years, Anderson found his way to Vidalia&8217;s KVLA which he left in 1991 following the death of his mother.

Later in that year he returned to Europe to perform in London.

In 1997 Anderson suffered a stroke that paralyzed the right side of his body, but this has ceased stop him.

Called out by the sounds of music from this year&8217;s Balloon Race, on Oct 22, Anderson put an end to a 10-year break when he joined Walter &8216;Wolfman&8217; Washington on stage at Bobby Js Lounge.

&8220;That was nothing, I still got to get my blow right,&8221; Anderson said after a performance at the races.

Anderson now spends most of his days chatting with neighbors outside his home near the intersection of Maple Street and Mulberry Alley.

Though he has no big tour dates set, Anderson said he&8217;d like to perform more around Natchez but first he needs to touch up on his &8220;squeal.&8221;