[2] Born on a plantation in Red Banks, Mississippi, Cannon moved a hundred miles to Clarksdale, then the home of W. C. Handy, at the age of 12.

He ran away from home at the age of fifteen and began his career entertaining at sawmills and at levee and railroad camps in the Mississippi Delta around the turn of the twentieth century.

Cannon's Jug Stompers' recording of "Big Railroad Blues" is available on the compilation album The Music Never Stopped: Roots of the Grateful Dead.

During the blues revival of the 1960s, he made some appearances at colleges and coffee houses with Furry Lewis and Bukka White,[4] but he had to pawn his banjo to pay his heating bill the winter before The Rooftop Singers had a hit with "Walk Right In.

Cannon performed traditional songs, including "Kill It," "Salty Dog," "Going Around," "The Mountain," "Ol' Hen," "Gonna Raise a Ruckus Tonight," "Ain't Gonna Rain No More," "Boll-Weevil," "Come On down to My House," "Make Me a Pallet on Your Floor," "Get Up in the Morning Soon," and "Crawdad Hole," along with his own "Walk Right In," with stories and introductions between songs.

Gus Cannon died in Memphis, Tennessee, on October 15, 1979, and is buried at Greenview Memorial Gardens, Hernando, Mississippi.