Area blues guitarist and singer died on Sunday, January 10, 2010. Wakefield “Big Moody” Coney was one of the senior blues performers of southwest Mississippi.

He had led bands and played throughout the region for over forty years. He grew up outside of McComb in the East Fork community in neighboring Amite County.

At the age of five Coney got started on guitar at his grandmother’s church. He learned the basics at church, but also learned from playing along with records at home and through watching a couple of older cousins perform blues at local get-togethers. “I was looking right up in there faces when I was little and learned how to play,” he remembers, “”I know they got tired of me looking at them.”

At the age fourteen, Coney began playing with a blues group based in McComb. They would drive out to pick him up in East Fork and they traveled throughout the region, playing in local clubs and juke joints.

By the time he was eighteen, Coney was leading his own band, working the same circuit, playing at clubs in Natchez, Kentwood, Louisiana, Woodville, McComb, and other towns in the region.

Unlike many other Mississippi blues musicians, Coney never migrated north to Chicago or one of the other Midwestern cities where many of them had settled. Instead he stayed in McComb and raised a family, working during the day and playing music at night (sometimes up to five nights a week).

Many local musicians have come through Coney’s band over the years, including Hattiesburg guitarist Vasti Jackson.

Coney had also been able to get his family directly involved with his music. His son played drums in his father’s band while he was going through high school. Three of his sister’s sons also took their turns as drummer for Coney.

He was a local favorite.