This week marks the end of Black History Month, and if we had to choose one living African American who has made the biggest cultural contribution in the past century, 94-year-old music legend David “Honeyboy” Edwards would seem a pretty clear choice.

One of the only surviving practitioners of true Delta blues, the earliest style of blues music, Honeyboy Edwards is a living legend in the truest sense.  Born in the Mississippi Delta in 1915, Edwards left home at 14 to travel the South, riding freight trains and performing on the streets or in local juke joints.  He quickly became a part of the tight-knit group of Bluesmen who would shape American folk music, even laying the foundation for rock ‘n’ roll decades later.  Among them were Charlie Patton, Big Joe Williams and the legendary Robert Johnson, who is widely regarded as the father of blues; Edwards claims he was there the night Johnson died from drinking strychnine-laced whiskey.

Nearly a century later, Honeyboy carries on the Delta tradition on behalf of his iconic friends.  He has continued to record new music, releasing an album in 2008 and lending his musical genius to the work of countless other artists over the decades.  He received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Grammys last month, and he’ll spend 2010 touring the country, usually performing in intimate venues without band accompaniment.

Next month, Honeyboy Edwards makes a one-night-only appearance at the BB King Blues Club in NYC, where he’ll perform alongside Marc Benno.