Blind Lemon Jefferson

Blind Lemon, advertising card around 1926–1929.

Blind Lemon Jefferson (* as Lemon Henry Jefferson on September 24, 1893 in Coutchman , Texas , † December 19, 1929 in Chicago , Illinois ) was a very popular and influential American blues singer and guitarist in the 1920s . He is considered the most important exponent and one of the fathers of the Texas Blues and was the first country blues musician whose recordings were commercially successful. His success was decisive for the breakthrough of country blues in the record industry and thus indirectly made recordings and careers possible for other musicians.

Childhood and youth

Lange was presumed to be the year of birth in 1897, but research by Bruce Roberts in 1996 revealed that he was the seventh child of the farming family of Alec and Cassie Jefferson in September 1893. He was either seriously visually impaired from birth or from an early age. His glasses, his (short-term) activity as a wrestler and the fact that he usually carried a firearm while on the move are all indicators of rudimentary vision .

When his family entered the ward at Shiloh Primitive Baptist Church in Kirvin, Texas during his early teens, he began singing and learning guitar to play there and in other churches. With increasing confidence on the instrument he also played in surrounding places and at festivals, the only way for him as a blind man to earn some money.

Moved to Dallas and started career

In 1912 he moved to Dallas, where he continued to work as a street musician, performing at picnics and parties.

In Dallas he also met Leadbelly , who accompanied him for a long time on guitar, mandolin and accordion and later dedicated the piece Blind Lemon Blues to him. In 1918, however, the partnership broke up when Leadbelly was jailed for murder. During his travels through the red-light district bars in the larger cities of Oklahoma , Louisiana , Mississippi and as far as the east coast of the USA , he was occasionally accompanied by young musicians who also served as guides, including Josh White , Aaron "T-Bone" “Walker and possibly George Carter.

In 1922 or 1923 Jefferson married Roberta (last name unknown) in Dallas, and around 1925 had a son. However, the marriage broke up a few years later.

Recordings and fame

Since 1923 the record company Paramount Records has had some success for the first time in its company history with its so-called Race Series , a record series with recordings by black artists for a black audience. The blues recordings of that time were mostly so-called vaudeville or classic blues , pieces sung by women, often with orchestral accompaniment and an urban background.

In 1925 Paramount succeeded in signing a distribution agreement with the record dealer RT Ashford from Dallas. He suggested to Paramount to include a musician known locally in Dallas in their portfolio. Paramount gave in to this request. Blind Lemon Jefferson recorded for the first time at the end of 1925 and beginning of 1926 in Chicago , Illinois, and made his debut in March 1926 with the record Booster Blues / Dry Southern Blues , which with its combination of ragtime and blues became an immediate hit. The guitar he played was a twelve-string stella . By 1929 he recorded 79 singles for Paramount, each selling an estimated 100,000 copies, including Matchbox Blues , Black Snake Moan, and See that My Grave is Kept Clean . Two singles also appeared on the Okeh label and under the pseudonym Deacon LJ Bates .

The great popularity of Blind Lemon Jefferson and his contemporaries such as B. of guitarist Blind Blake and singer Ma Rainey made Paramount one of the leading producers of the blues in the 1920s. Jefferson made his success possible by having a chauffeured car.

death

Jefferson died on December 19, 1929, believed to be of a heart attack during a snow storm on the streets of Chicago.

The pianist Will Ezell accompanied him on the transfer to Texas paid for by Paramount Records . Jefferson is buried at Wortham Negro Cemetery (now Wortham Black Cemetery ). His grave was not even marked for a long time, let alone cared for (“See That My Grave is Kept Clean”) until a Texas Historical Marker was erected at the approximate location of his grave in 1967 , the exact location remained unknown. In 1996 the cemetery and markings were again in poor condition until a new granite tombstone was erected in 1997.

plant

Jefferson's repertoire initially consisted entirely of sacred songs. Only gradually did he increasingly expand it to include blues pieces, for the rest of his career his repertoire was always to consist of both genres, he was never a pure blues singer.

Got The Blues , Long Lonesome Blues and the later celebrated pieces like Matchbox Blues and Black Snake Moan show his unusual, down-to-earth approach to music and the wide range of his topics, humorous pieces characterized by sex and parties, about images of deceitful women, difficult times to dark topics of prison and death.

The often sad sound of his high-pitched voice was complemented and cheered up by his astonishingly complex, inventive and fast guitar style.

reception

Considered one of the first representatives of classic blues and one of the best folk-blues singers of the 1920s, Jefferson has greats like Louis Armstrong , Bessie Smith , Bix Beiderbecke , John Lee Hooker , Howlin 'Wolf , BB King , Albert King , T -Bone Walker , Big Bill Broonzy and the (then eight year old) Lightnin 'Hopkins . Many of his pieces such as the classic See That My Grave is Kept Clean were covered by later musicians (e.g. Bob Dylan ).

Blind Lemon Jefferson was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame by the Blues Foundation in 1980 , and his song Match Box Blues was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2010.

proof

• Paul Swinton: A Twist Of Lemon . In: Blues & Rhythm: The Gospel Truth . No. 121, pp. 4–9, online (PDF; 345 kB) .
• Robert Santelli: The Big Book of Blues. A Biographical Encyclopedia . Penguin, New York NY et al. 1993, ISBN 0-14-015939-8 , (English).

Individual evidence

1. ^ Hannes Fricke: Myth guitar: history, interpreters, great hours. Reclam, Stuttgart 2013, ISBN 978-3-15-020279-1 , p. 133.
2. ↑ Hannes Fricke (2013), pp. 133 and 134 f.