Digital Sketchbook: Blind Lemon Jefferson
Listening to Blind Lemon Jefferson a lot lately, I recently learned he died on this day 90 years ago, so I thought I would draw a tribute to him.
Jefferson was a pioneer of the Texas blues, but he seemed to draw in a variety of styles of country and the blues into his repertoire and his method of playing. He traveled a lot, often by train, and reputedly by black limousine after he became a best selling recording artist for Paramount. He is considered the first successful solo vocalist and guitarist on record. He had an incredible voice and range that he used to deliver pain, joy, sarcasm, anguish, wistfulness, and an intelligent delivery of emotions that suited the lyrics. His guitar playing is complex, intricate, yet rhythmic and responsive to the song he is singing, like a callback or a commentary. His best known tunes are “See That My Grave is Kept Clean,” “Prison Cell Blues,” and “Matchbox Blues” which Carl Perkins later recorded and stole the credit, fooling the young Beatles when they took up the song themselves. He played with Lead Belly, and taught T-Bone Walker how to play. When he died this day in 1929, he was merely 36 years old.
It is amazing to me that as we enter the twenties of this new century that we are only just now passing the one hundred year mark of music that has become so woven into the fabric of our national and world culture. Jefferson, Ma Rainey, Mamie Smith, and so many other important blues figures started cutting records in the 1920s as the technology was improving and the business of selling records to the public was just starting to take off. We are about to come upon a lot of centennials in the coming decade.
