John Dee Holeman was born April 4, 1929 in Hillsborough, North Carolina. Raised on a farm in Orange County, he learned guitar and listened to bluesmen like Blind Boy Fuller, before performing locally in his teens. Holeman moved to Durham, North Carolina, in 1954, where he played with pianist Fris Holloway. His first album, Bull City After Dark, was nominated for a W.C. Handy award. In the 1980s, Holeman toured extensively, including at Carnegie Hall. He received a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1988 and the North Carolina Folk Heritage Award in 1994. His song "Chapel Hill Boogie" was featured on the Grammy-nominated album 10 Days Out: Blues from the Backroads by Kenny Wayne Shepherd in 2007. Holeman died April 30, 2021 at age 92.
