Eddie Mapp was a brilliant but little-known harmonica player originally from the small town of Social Circle in Walton County, GA. Very little is known of his life before he moved to Newton County, GA, in 1922. He immediately hooked up with young guitar player James "Curley" Weaver; the two would play at country dances and frolics, sometimes as a duo, sometimes with their friends Robert and/or Charlie Hicks. Mapp was remembered around Newton County as a great harmonica player, particularly on Careless Love, though no one ever recalled him singing. He often played on the street for tips; if the crowd wasn't tipping, he'd quit playing and move on. Mapp was a harmonica virtuoso who quickly developed his own style. Longtime Newton County residents Edward "Snap" Hill and Albert Noone Hill (no relation) instantly recognized his one, very rare solo recording, Riding the Blinds, when Bruce Bastin played it, though Mapp had died forty years before and neither knew he'd made a record. In 1925 Weaver and Mapp left for Atlanta, where they hooked up with their old Newton County friends, the Hicks brothers. Various combinations of these four would play at house parties and busk on the streets. Mapp first recorded thanks to Robert Hicks (by now known as Barbecue Bob) as part of The Georgia Cotton Pickers. He also backed many different Georgia musicians (including Weaver) for the QRS label in 1929, when he recorded Riding the Blinds. None of the songs sold too well, but that probably had more to do with the label's limited size and distribution than the music the group recorded. Two years later, Mapp was dead. Less than a month after Robert Hicks died, he was found at the corner of Houston and Butler on November 14, 1931. According to his death certificate, the brachial artery of his left arm was severed. Piano Red heard that he'd been knifed through the heart by a girlfriend. His death certificate gave his occupation as "musician", which was uncommon on death certificates at the time and shows a high level of accomplishment. It also gives his age as twenty, which seems pretty young. After all, he would have been fourteen when he moved to Atlanta; but then again, adulthood can come quickly to some people.

Eddie Mapp can be heard backing Barbecue Bob on the various albums dedicated to him. however, I recommend Document's Georgia Blues 1928-1933 (DOCD-5110). Mapp plays on roughly half of the songs, and it has is one solo record.