Blind Lemon Jefferson
"Blind" Lemon Jefferson (September 1893–December 1929) was an influential blues singer and guitarist from Texas. He was one of the most popular blues singers of the 1920s.
Jefferson had an intricate and fast style of guitar playing and a particularly high-pitched voice. He was a founder of the Texas blues sound and an important influence on the next generation of blues singers and guitarists, including Leadbelly and Lightnin Hopkins. He was the author of many tunes covered by later musicians, including the classic "See That My Grave is Kept Clean". Another of his tunes, "Matchbox Blues", was recorded more than 30 years later by the Beatles, albeit in a country & western version credited to Carl Perkins, who himself did not credit Jefferson on his 1955 recording. Given this influence, it is unfortunate that many of the details of his life remain shrouded in mystery, perhaps forever; even the only known picture of him, shown here, is heavily retouched. However, at the time, "race music" and its white cousin, "hillbilly music", were not considered to be worthy of consideration as art, rather as a low-cost product to be sold and soon forgotten.
Jefferson is believed to have been born in Couchman, Texas, near Wortham, Texas. It was long believed by most that he was born in 1897 (although some accounts varied the date by up to ten years) but research a century later revealed a census record that listed his birth record as September 1893. He was blind or nearly blind from a young age, possibly from birth; the cause is unknown, as is the reason for the name or nickname "Lemon".
Where, how, and from whom he learned to play guitar and learned his songs is unknown. Around 1912, he began performing at picnics and parties. He also became a street musician, playing in East Texas towns. According to his cousin, Alec Jefferson, quoted in the notes for Blind Lemon Jefferson, Classic Sides:
- They was rough. Men was hustling women and selling bootleg and Lemon was singing for them all night... he'd start singing about eight and go on until four in the morning... mostly it would be just him sitting there and playing and singing all night.
By 1917, Lemon had moved to Dallas, where he is reputed to have met and played with Leadbelly, as well as gotten married.
Unlike many artists who were "discovered" and recorded in their normal venues, in December 1925 or January 1926, he was taken to Chicago, Illinois, to record his first tracks. Uncharacteristically, Jefferson's first two recordings from this session were gospel songs (I Want to be like Jesus in my Heart, and All I Want is that Pure Religion), released under the name Deacon L. J. Bates. This led to a second recording session in March 1926. His first release under his own name, "Booster Blues" and "Dry Southern Blues", was a hit; this led to the release of the other two songs from that session, "Got the Blues" and "Long Lonesome Blues", which became a runaway success, with sales in the six figures. He recorded about 100 tracks between 1926 and 1929; 43 records were issued, all but one for Paramount Records. Unfortunately, Paramount Records' studio techniques and quality were infamously bad, and the resulting recordings sound no better than if they had been recorded in a hotel room. In fact, in May 1926, Paramount had Jefferson re-record his hit "Got the Blues" and "Long Lonesome Blues" in the superior facilities at Marsh Laboratories and subsequent releases used that version. Both versions appear on compilation albums and may be compared.
It was largely due to the popularity of artists such as Blind Lemon Jefferson and contemporaries such as Blind Blake and Ma Rainey that Paramount became the leading recording company for the blues in the 1920s. Jefferson's earnings reputedly enabled him to buy a car and employ chauffeurs (although there is debate over the reliability of this as well); he was given a Ford car "worth over $700" by Mayo Williams, Paramount's connection with the black community. This was a frequently seen compensation for recording rights in that market. Jefferson is known to have done an unusual amount of traveling for the time in the American South, which is reflected in the difficulty of pigeonholing his music into one regional category. He sticks to no musical conventions, varying his riffs and rhythm and singing complex and expressive lyrics in a manner exceptional at the time for a "simple country blues singer".
Jefferson was reputedly unhappy with his royalties (although Williams said that Jefferson had a bank account containing as much as $1500). In 1927, when Williams moved to OKeh Records, he took Jefferson with him, and OKeh quickly recorded and released Jefferson's "Matchbox Blues" backed with "Black Snake Moan", which was to be his only OKeh recording, probably because of contractual obligations with Paramount. When he had returned to Paramount, a few months later, "Matchbox Blues" had already become such a hit that Paramount re-recorded and released two new versions, under producer Arthur Laidly. Once again, Paramount's recording fares badly when compared with the OKeh version on compilation albums.
In 1927, Jefferson recorded another of his now classic songs, the haunting "See That My Grave is Kept Clean" (once again using the pseudonym Deacon L. J. Bates) along with two other uncharacteristically spiritual songs, "He Arose from the Dead" and "Where Shall I Be". Of the three, "See That My Grave is Kept Clean" became such a big hit that it was re-recorded and re-released in 1928.
As his fame grew, so did the tales regarding his life, often personally involving the teller. T-Bone Walker states that as a boy, he was employed by Jefferson to lead him around the streets of Dallas; he would have been of the appropriate age at the time. A Paramount employee told biographer Orrin Keepnews that Jefferson was a womanizing sloppy drunk; on the other hand, Jefferson's neighbor in Chicago, Romeo Nelson, reports him as being "warm and cordial", and singer Rube Lacy states that Jefferson always refused to play on a Sunday, "even if you give me two hundred". He is claimed to have earned money wrestling before his musical success, which is further claimed as proof that he was not blind at the time (somewhat of a non sequitur). Victoria Spivey elliptically credits Jefferson as someone who "could sure feel his way around".
Jefferson died penny-less in Chicago in December 1929. The cause of death is unknown, rumours swirled that a jealous lover poisoned his coffee, but a more likely scenario is that he died due to a heart attack after being disoriented during a snowstorm. Paramount Records paid for the return of his body to Texas by train, accompanied by pianist Will Ezell. Jefferson was buried at Wortham Negro Cemetery (now Wortham Black Cemetery). Far from his grave being kept clean, it was unmarked until 1967, when a Texas Historical Marker was erected in the general area of his plot, the precise location being unknown. By 1996 the cemetery and marker were in poor condition, but a new granite headstone was erected in 1997.
Trivia
- The rock band Blind Melon is named from derivative wordplay on Jefferson's name, Blind Lemon; however, the band is not specifically named for him.