JEFFERSON, BLIND LEMON (ca. 1893–1929). Blind Lemon Jefferson, a seminal
blues guitarist and songster, was born on a farm in Couchman,
near Wortham, Freestone County, Texas, in the mid-1890s. Sources
differ as to the exact birthdate. Census records indicate
that he was born on September 24, 1893, while apparently Jefferson
himself wrote the date of October 26, 1894, on his World War
I draft registration. He was the son of Alec and Clarissy
Banks Jefferson. His parents were sharecroppers. There are
numerous contradictory accounts of where Lemon lived, performed,
and died, complicated further by the lack of photographic
documentation; to date, only two photographs of him have been
identified, and even these are misleading. The cause of his
blindness isn't known, nor whether he had some sight.
Little is known about Jefferson's early life. He must have
heard songsters and bluesmen, like Henry "Ragtime Texas"
Thomas and "Texas" Alexander. Both Thomas and Alexander
traveled around East Texas and performed a variety of blues
and dance tunes. Clearly, Jefferson was an heir to the blues
songster tradition, though the specifics of his musical training
are vague. Legends of his prowess as a bluesman abound among
the musicians who heard him, and sightings of Jefferson in
different places around the country are plentiful.
By his teens, he began spending time in Dallas. About 1912
he started performing in the Deep Ellum and Central Track
areas of Dallas, where he met Huddie Ledbetter, better known
as Leadbelly, one of the most legendary musical figures to
travel and live in Texas. In interviews he gave in the 1940s,
Leadbelly gave various dates for his initial meeting with
Jefferson, sometimes placing it as early as 1904. But he mentioned
1912 most consistently, and that seems plausible. Jefferson
would then have been eighteen or nineteen years old. The two
became musical partners in Dallas and the outlying areas of
East Texas. Leadbelly learned much about the blues from Blind
Lemon, and he had plenty to contribute as a musician and a
showman.
Though Jefferson was known to perform almost daily at the
corner of Elm Street and Central Avenue in Dallas, there is
no evidence that he ever lived in the city. The 1920 census
shows him living in Freestone County with an older half-brother,
Nit C. Banks, and his family. Jefferson's occupation is listed
as "musician" and his employer as "general
public." Some time after 1920, Jefferson met Roberta
Ransom, who was ten years his senior. They married in 1927,
the year that Ransom's son by a previous marriage, Theaul
Howard, died. Howard's son, also named Theaul, remained in
the area and retired in nearby Ferris, Texas.
In 1925 Jefferson was discovered by a Paramount recording
scout and taken to Chicago to make records. Though he was
not the first folk (or "country") blues singer–guitarist,
or the first to make commercial recordings, Jefferson was
the first to attain a national audience. His extremely successful
recording career began in 1926 and continued until 1929. He
recorded 110 sides (including all alternate takes), of which
seven were not issued and six are not yet available in any
format. In addition to blues, he recorded two spiritual songs,
"I Want to be Like Jesus in My Heart" and "All
I Want is That Pure Religion," released under the pseudonym
Deacon L. J. Bates. Overall, Jefferson's recordings display
an extraordinary virtuosity. His compositions are rooted in
tradition, but are innovative in his guitar solos, his two-octave
vocal range, and the complexity of his lyrics, which are at
once ironic, humorous, sad, and poignant.
Jefferson's approach to creating his blues varied. Some of
his songs use essentially the same melodic and guitar parts.
Others contain virtually no repetition. Some are highly rhythmic
and related to different dances, the names of which he called
out at times between or in the middle of stanzas. He made
extensive use of single-note runs, often apparently picked
with his thumb, and he played in a variety of keys and tunings.
Jefferson is widely recognized as a profound influence upon
the development of the Texas blues tradition and the growth
of American popular music. His significance has been acknowledged
by blues, jazz, and rock musicians, from Sam "Lightnin'"
Hopkins, Mance Lipscomb, and T-Bone Walker to Bessie Smith,
Bix Beiderbecke, Louis Armstrong, Carl Perkins, Jefferson
Airplane, and the Beatles. In the 1970s, Jefferson was parodied
as "Blind Mellow Jelly" by Redd Foxx in his popular
"Sanford and Son" television series, and by the
1990s there was a popular alternative rock band called Blind
Melon. A caricature of Blind Lemon appears on the inside of
a Swedish blues magazine, called Jefferson. He appears in
the same characteristic pose as his publicity photo, but instead
of wearing a suit and tie, he is depicted in a Hawaiian-style
shirt. In each issue, the editors put new words in the singer's
mouth: "Can I change my shirt now? Is the world ready
for me yet?" Alan Govenar and Akin Babatunde have composed
a musical, Blind Lemon: Prince of Country Blues, staged at
the Majestic Theatre, Dallas (1999), and the Addison WaterTower
Theatre (2001), and have also developed a touring musical
revue, entitled Blind Lemon Blues.
Jefferson died in Chicago on December 22, 1929, and was buried
in the Wortham Negro Cemetery. His grave was unmarked until
1967, when a Texas state historical marker was dedicated to
him. He was inducted in the Blues Foundation's Hall of Fame
in 1980. In 1997 the town of Wortham began a blues festival
named for the singer, and a new granite headstone was placed
at his gravesite. The inscription included lyrics from one
of the bluesman's songs: "Lord, it's one kind favor I'll
ask of you. See that my grave is kept clean." In 2007
the name of the cemetery was changed to Blind Lemon Memorial
Cemetery. Among Jefferson's most well-known songs are "Matchbox
Blues," "See That My Grave Is Kept Clean,"
"That Black Snake Moan," "Mosquito Blues,"
"One Dime Blues," "Tin Cup Blues," "Hangman's
Blues," "'Lectric Chair Blues," and "Black
Horse Blues." All of Blind Lemon Jefferson's recordings
have been reissued by Document Records.
