He started his professional career with Estelle Yancey, who asked him to play with him. This was the beginning of a life long friendship.He was also mentored and influenced by Cripple Clarence Lofton, Speckled Red, and Sunnyland Slim. In the 1960s and 1970s he played with Jimmy Walker. In 1982 he started his own record label, Read Bean. There he released albums of Estelle Yancey, Blind John Davis, Johnny "Big Moose" Walker and other Chicago blues artists. He was nominated for Blues Music Awards in 2003, for 'Comeback Blues Album of the Year', for his CD I'm Not Hungry But I Like To Eat - Blues. He still plays at different blues- and jazzfestivals all over the world.(Chicago Jazz Festival, 2005–2007; Hungary's Debrecen Jazz Festival, 2005, the Chicago Blues Festival, in June 2010, and all the years in Chicago's blues clubs.)