Blind Lemon Jefferson: the myth and the man.

In recent years, the life of Blind Lemon Jefferson has been the subject of considerable speculation.(1) Although his recordings are extensive, details about his life are relatively few. The facts of Jefferson's life are scattered in an array of articles in newspapers, fan and collector magazines, record liner notes, local legends, first-person narratives, and mythic representations. There are numerous contradictory accounts of where Jefferson lived, performed, and died. All this is 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 Jefferson's blindness is not known, nor is it known whether he had some residual sight. Why would a blind man wear clear glasses, as he does in a record-company publicity shot?

Researchers traditionally have depended largely on secondary sources and anectodal evidence. Generally, blues scholars have identified Lemon Jefferson's birth date as September 24, 1897, although census records indicate that the year was in fact 1893 and that his registered name was spelled "Lemmon." His parents, Alec and Clarissy Banks Jefferson, lived and worked as sharecroppers on a farm in Couchman, a small community near Wortham in Freestone County, Texas, which was a stop on the Houston & Texas Central line seventy-five miles south of Dallas. Wortham had three cotton gins, and the Houston & Texas Central carried the crop to market in Dallas.

Little is known about Jefferson's early life. He must have heard songsters and bluesmen, such as Henry "Ragtime Texas" Thomas, and Alger "Texas" Alexander. Both Thomas and Alexander traveled around East Texas and performed a variety of blues and dance tunes. Jefferson was clearly an heir to the blues songster tradition, although 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.

Jefferson came from a large family that included children from his mother's first marriage. He took up music at an early age and learned to get around the nearby little towns of Wortham, Kirvin, Streetman, and Groesbeck. "Lemon started out playing his guitar on these streets, and I was on those same streets," recalled Quince Cox (1999b), born in 1903, who once served as caretaker in the Wortham cemetery, where Jefferson is buried. "I pitched quarter and nickels to him, and he'd play his guitar at any time of night. He used to play at Jake Lee's [a white-operated] barbershop every Saturday, and people from all over came to hear him play. Then he'd get on this road at ten or eleven o'clock, and he'd walk to Kirvin, seven or eight miles. He'd play and keep walking, but he knew where he was going" (see also Steinberg 1982).

Alec Jefferson told writer Samuel Charters that his mother would not let him go to the country suppers where his cousin Lemon was playing. "They were rough. Men was hustling women and selling bootleg, and Lemon was singing for them all night. They didn't even do proper kind of dancing, just stomping" (quoted in Charters 1959, 178). According to Hobart Carter (1999b), another native of the Wortham area, Jefferson often played "breakdowns in the woods" near Couchman and was sometimes accompanied by a fiddler named Lorenzo Ross. "They had a hallelujah time. We had our suppers and things. Saturday nights and things like that. All through the winter, we'd have some cold nights and some rainy nights. We had plenty of chock houses at that time. You get some sugar, put it in a crock. Let it set three days and go to drinking it. Chock houses were everywhere at that time."

Quince Cox (1999b), a longtime friend of Carter, maintains that "Lemon played anything he had to play. And he played pretty good, too. What did we call them songs? Reels ... He could play anything you asked him to play." In addition to dance tunes, Cox remembers that Jefferson sometimes "howled" or "squealed" when he performed in public. "You hear one of them around a wolf or a possum or a coon or something on the track, he could do that good, too. Sure would ... oh yeah, he'd squeal just like a dog. Make it sound good, too" (1999a).

Carter adds that Jefferson's family were members of the Shiloh Baptist Church in Kirvin, and that the younger Lemon was highly regarded as a singer of spirituals as well as blues. "He didn't play for a church," Carter remembers, "but he sang church songs" (1999b). Former blues singer Reverend Rubin Lacy told blues historian David Evans that Jefferson once refused two men who had each offered him ten dollars to play "Blues Come to Texas Loping Like A Mule" because he had promised his mother that he would never play a guitar on Sunday (Evans 1971, 242). Wortham postmaster Uel L. Davis Jr. told a Waco Tribune Herald reporter, "That was one thing about Lemon. He'd be singing in church one day, singing at a house of ill repute the next" (quoted in Lippman 1983; see also Uzzel 1982).

By his teens, Jefferson also began spending time in Dallas. Samuel Charters (1959, 179-181), who interviewed Jefferson's family members and friends in the 1950s, notes that Jefferson "wrestled for money in Dallas theatres. Since he was blind, he could be billed as a novelty wrestler. He weighed nearly 250 pounds, so he was never hurt, but it was a rough way to make a living. As soon as he started making a little money singing, he left the theatres." About 1912, Jefferson met Huddie Ledbetter, better known as Leadbelly, in the Deep Ellum area of Dallas, and over the next few years the two became musical partners (Wolfe and Lornell 1992, 42-48).

The 1920 census shows Jefferson living in Freestone County with an older half brother, Nit C. Banks, and his family. His occupation is listed as "musician" and his employer as "general public." The details of his personal life around this time are few. Hobart Carter (1999b) says that Jefferson had "so many wives," but he was unable to name them. Quince Cox (1999b) claims that Jefferson may have had as many as four wives but also did not know their names. In any event, it is known that some time after 1920 Jefferson met Roberta Ransom of Mexia in neighboring Limestone County, 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, retiring in nearby Ferris, Texas. He recalled that when his father was laid out before the funeral, Jefferson held him up and told him to touch the body so that he would never fear the dead (Howard 1993).

Theaul Howard and several longtime residents of Mexia recalled that Jefferson and Roberta Ransom lived in a house on West Hopkins Street, and that Jefferson performed on "the Beat," a nearby strip of black businesses that included a movie theater, cafes, and honky-tonks and that apparently was a small-town version of Dallas's Deep Ellum. According to Charlie Hurd (1993), who was 101 years old and living in a Mexia nursing home in the year he was interviewed, Jefferson also played in a string band with the Phillips brothers: Wash, Tim, and Doc. This Wash Phillips may have been Washington Phillips, who recorded in Dallas in the late 1920s, singing religious songs and accompanying himself on a small keyboard-operated zither called a dolceola.

It is unclear how much time Jefferson spent in Dallas and whether his wife ever moved there with him. Musician Sam Price remembered Jefferson's wife Roberta and recalled that the musician would play and sing daily around Central and Elm until about ten o'clock at night, then walk back to his home in the Prairie, in South Dallas. "He was a bootlegger," Price said, "and when he'd get back home he had such a sensitive ear. He didn't want his wife to drink. Well, when he'd go away, she'd take two or three drinks out of the bottle and she'd think he wouldn't know it. But he'd take the bottle when he came home and say, `How you doin' baby? How'd we do today?' `Nobody bought no whiskey,' she'd answer. Well, he'd take the bottle and shake it, and he could hear that there were two or three drinks missing. And what he'd do, he'd beat the hell out of her for that" (quoted in Govenar 1995, 16).

It may be that Blind Lemon Jefferson traveled back and forth from Dallas to Mexia. His name does not appear in Dallas city directories, although in 1929 and 1930 there is a listing for an Alex Jefferson, farmer, and his wife, Classie, on Beal Street in South Dallas. Jefferson played up and down the Central Track outside and in the honky-tonks and cafes. He was often seen around the intersection of Elm and the track. Folk artist Willard Watson (1992) recalled seeing him playing at the Tip-Top dance hall. Sam Stillman (1992), who worked for years at the Model Tailors in Deep Ellum, said Jefferson bought his clothes there but seldom if ever performed on Elm Street.

Bluesman Sam "Lightnin'" Hopkins first encountered Jefferson at a Baptist church picnic in Buffalo, Texas, in 1920. Then eight years old, Hopkins watched Jefferson intently all day, then attempted to play along. Hopkins recalled that Jefferson, displeased, shouted, "Boy, you've got to play it right" (quoted in Charters 1967, 178).

Navasota songster Mance Lipscomb told biographer Glen Alyn, "When we got ta Dallas, we hung around where we could hear Blind Lemon sing and play.... It was jest hunnuds a people up an down that [Central] Track.... So, that's where I got nated ta him: nineteen-seventeen. M-hm. He hung out round on the track, down on Deep Ellum.... An people stawted ta comin in there, from nine-thirty until six o'clock that evenin. Then it gittin dawk an he git somebody ta carry im home" (quoted in Alyn 1994, 199-200). Lipscomb's description of Jefferson is similar to that of others who saw him: "[A] big loud songster, ... a big, stout fella.... He played dance songs, never did play a church son.... He had a tin cup wired on ta the neck of his gittah. An when you give him something, why, he'd thank ya. But he wouldn't never take no pennies. You could drap a penny in there an he'd know the sound. He'd take it out an throw it away" (199-200).

Others recall Jefferson putting his hat down in the street for contributions, rather than using a cup. There are several accounts that attest to his skill in identifying the money given to him. According to singer Victoria Spivey (1966, 9), who knew him in Texas, Jefferson often used the expression "Don't play me cheap," and he meant what he said. When he was in Atlanta for a recording session, he asked producer Tom Rockwell for a five-dollar advance. As a joke, Rockwell handed him a dollar bill, but Jefferson recognized it and complained (Brown 1975, 31). "You could hand him a dozen bills," bluesman Tom Shaw commented. "He'd tell you just that fast whether it's a five- or a one-dollar bill" (quoted in Calt n.d.).

Accounts of Jefferson's ability to get around are somewhat contradictory. A number of musicians claim to have led him through the streets when they were young. But others who knew him were astounded by his sense of direction. In an interview with Samuel Charters, Lightnin' Hopkins recalled, "They wouldn't 'low you to lead him, 'cause they say you call him blind. No, don't call him blind. He never did feel like he blind, 'cause he was always like that. He was born like that" (Hopkins 1959). According to researcher Mack McCormick (1993), Jefferson's sister talked of his independence and said that when she'd visit her brother in Dallas, he'd show off how well he could get around unaided.

Nonetheless, bluesman T-Bone Walker said that, when he was growing up in Dallas, "I used to lead [Jefferson] around, playing and passing the cup, take him from one beer joint to another. I liked hearing him play. He would sing like nobody's business. He was a friend of my father's. People used to crowd around him so you couldn't see him" (quoted in Greenough 1947, 5). Josh White, a singer who spent much of his childhood as a lead boy for blind musicians, told writer Paul Oliver that he took Jefferson into the streets around noon when the crowds were thickest and that sometimes he accompanied him with a tambourine, tapping a loud rhythm on his knee to draw a good crowd. Then he would turn the tambourine over and cry, "Help the blind, help the blind" (quoted in Oliver 1984, 65). James Thibodeaux (1997), a Dallas photographer and painter, remembers seeing Jefferson and White walking together on Thomas Avenue in North Dallas. However, given the fact that Josh White was living in South Carolina at the time, it seems unlikely that he would have been in Dallas. Jefferson did mention South Carolina in his song "Long Distance Moan," as if he had been there in his travels. Perhaps Jefferson used a lead boy at times, particularly when he was in unfamiliar surroundings, and not at others. Some of those who claim to have led him may be embellishing their own stories; or perhaps the stories are true, and Jefferson simply liked the company or enjoyed serving as a mentor to aspiring musicians.

Jefferson's ramblings often took him by the shine parlor and record shop operated by R. T. Ashford (1883-1976) near the corner of Elm Street and Central Avenue in Dallas. The February 1925 Negro Business Bulletin lists the business as the R. T. Ashford Record Shop, located at 409 Central Avenue. However, Ashford's daughter, Lurline Holland (1910-99), maintained that her father started the first black shine parlor at 408 North Central in Dallas as early as 1920, and that it became the "first black record shop" with "all the black and white artists--mostly black blues singers--the records, Columbia, Paramount, OKeh--the singers were Ethel Waters, Bessie Smith, Ida Cox and Sara Martin. In the music shop, three soundproof rooms--they called [them] booths or cubicles to play on the Victrola before buying the records. Two or three people could sit in and hear. They always bought three or more records, at the cost of 75 cents each. These were people who work and got their pay weekly--professionals got paid by the month and bought one [record] every once in a while" (Holland n.d.). (2)

Sam Price (1991) said that he worked in Ashford's shop and told his boss that Jefferson should be recorded; others doubt that claim. At any rate, Ashford talked to Paramount Records about the singer, and the Wisconsin-based company invited Jefferson to make race records in Chicago. Ashford accompanied him on his first trip, in late 1925 or early 1926. Holland (n.d.) recalled that her father "would carry people with talent on the train to Chicago to audition--Blind Lemon who sat on the corner with a cup--singing blues and playing his guitar--he was one of them."

During the zenith of his brief recording career, between 1926 and 1928, Jefferson often commuted between Dallas and Chicago, where he had a South Side kitchenette at 37th and Rhodes, but he continued to travel around Texas and to other states, including Oklahoma, Mississippi, and Georgia, where he recorded for the OKeh label. Mississippi bluesman Houston Stackhouse remembered seeing Jefferson in his hometown: "He came to Crystal Springs and was playin' in some little show for a doctor. They had it in Freetown, there at the colored school. There was plenty of people there. It was a big school and crowded all indoors, people couldn't get to see him. They had to bring him out to the front, on the porch" (quoted in O'Neil 1974, 20-21).

His producer for Paramount, Mayo Williams, who was African American himself, bought Jefferson a $725 Ford, and the singer hired a chauffeur to drive it for him. Jefferson also owned a 1923 or 1924 Dodge that he mentioned in his performance of "D. B. Blues" (Calt n.d.). According to Hobart Carter (1999b), Jefferson's chauffeur was a man named Papa Sollie, who came from Mexia: "People would come from everywhere to hear Blind Lemon sing. If they put that money down heavy, he'd sing heavy, but if the money was light, he'd tell Papa Sollie they got to leave from there."

Quince Cox (1999a) recalls another (or perhaps the same) chauffeur with the nickname of Stingaree, also from Mexia. It is likely that Jefferson, given his frequent travel, may have had more than one chauffeur and depended on a number of people for transportation and other services. Mayo Williams stated that Jefferson's royalties accumulated so quickly that he was encouraged to open a savings account, which reached a balance of $1,500. For a black performer to receive royalties at all was extraordinary for the time.

By 1929, popular interest in Jefferson's music began to decline. His instrumental arrangements became more derivative of his earlier work. Some assert that there was also a decline in his vocal range, although David Evans (2000) disagrees, pointing out that Jefferson seemed to be concentrating increasingly on being a composer and conveying the message of his songs. "Actually," Evans maintains, "some of these late recordings are among his most interesting and poetic."

Of course, 1929 also marked the beginning of the Great Depression, which devastated the recording industry. No one knows what would have happened to Blind Lemon Jefferson's career if he had lived. But in late 1929, he died in Chicago. The circumstances and even the date of his death are unclear. No official record has been found, and the oral accounts are contradictory. Arthur Laibly, who had succeeded Williams as Jefferson's producer, said that the singer died of a heart attack--based on a report from Laibly's office assistant. Laibly heard that Jefferson died during a blizzard, an account later substantiated by Williams, who added that the singer had collapsed in his car and was abandoned by his chauffeur. According to other accounts, someone failed to pick Jefferson up at the train station, and he tried to walk to his hotel and froze after losing his way in the snow, which disoriented him by muffling sounds (Calt n.d.). The Wortham [Texas] Journal of January 3, 1930, reported: "Lemon Jefferson Dies in Chicago. Lemon Jefferson, 45, a blind Negro who was reared in Wortham and the community, died of heart failure in Chicago and was shipped to Wortham for burial arriving here on Christmas Eve."

When asked about the funeral in 1996, Quince Cox (1987), then working as Wortham cemetery caretaker, was quick to reply: "Anyone over the age of 60 remembers that day well. They brought his body back to Texas by train. People said he died in the snow after a recording session in Chicago, that he was lost, couldn't find his way. Some thought it was foul play. Two or three hundred people came to the funeral, black and white, to watch his coffin lowered into the ground." Hobart Carter (1999b) adds that when the body arrived from Chicago, it was picked up at the station by somebody with a wagon and a team. "Then they went straight to the funeral. The preacher was Uncle Warren Smith. Old Man Warren Smith. He was a Baptist. It was cold. Coldest weather we had. Zero."

Carter recalls that Blind Lemon's parents did not attend their son's funeral and that there were only "three or four" Jeffersons in attendance. Many of the people were strangers, and because of the cold temperatures, the funeral service was relatively brief. When asked about his understanding of the circumstances of Jefferson's death, Carter said, "He died in Chicago on the coldest night they had up there. He wanted to run around with some folks up there, and got amongst the wrong bunch."

Six months after Jefferson's death, Paramount attempted to capitalize on the tragedy by issuing six tribute records. Allegedly, Paramount postponed announcing the death for as long as possible. The last record released as a tribute to Jefferson was a sermon by the Reverend Emmitt Dickinson called "Death of Blind Lemon," which compares the singer to Jesus Christ. The sermon does little to explain the reality of Jefferson's life and death, but it is testimony to the magnitude of his career and its importance in African-American culture.

Today, more than a century after his birth, Blind Lemon Jefferson lies buried in the black section of the small Wortham cemetery. A state historical plaque erected in 1965 marks the burial place, which is flat and windswept, an eerie fulfillment of his recording plea, "See That My Grave's Kept Clean." The town began a blues festival named for the singer in 1997 and erected a new granite headstone.

In his adopted city of Dallas, Jefferson is still relatively unknown. A musical based on his life premiered in Dallas in June 1999 and has contributed to a revival of interest in the singer and his oeuvre. (3) Although the facts related to his life are fragmentary, interviews with Hobart Carter and Quince Cox in particular reveal some aspects of the musician's personality and his early years growing up in the Couchman and Wortham area of East Texas. Carter (1999b), describes Jefferson as an "about halfway quiet" man who was "almost business all the time." Although the singer had more than one wife, Carter and Cox both saw him as a Christian kind of man, who preferred to play in basically "nice" places, in front of hotels or barbershops, at house parties and country dances, and sometimes at local churches and Saturday night suppers. Physically, Jefferson was imposing, weighing in excess of two hundred pounds. He usually was well dressed, wearing "good" clothes--Stetson hats and blue serge suits.

How Jefferson learned to play guitar is still not entirely clear, but both Carter (1999b) and Cox (1999a) report that his parents bought him the instrument when he was a child. He apparently did get some schooling and was especially astute at listening to others. Carter (1999a) attributes Jefferson's songwriting prowess to his almost uncanny ability to "keep in mind" what he heard around him. Certainly, the far-reaching thematic range of Jefferson's songs attests to the breadth of his understanding of the human experience and the cultural traditions of the world in which he lived.

Many of the songs that Jefferson recorded were personalized versions of traditional country blues from East Texas and used proverbs and other elements of African-American folk speech. Such songs include "Jack o' Diamond Blues," about the perils of gambling; a rendition of "Two Horses Standing in a Line" that he renamed "See That My Grave's Kept Clean"; and "See, See Rider," which he transformed into "Corinna Blues."

In his songs, Jefferson usually identifies himself with the experiences of his audience--suffering and hope, economic anxiety and failure, the breakup of the family, and the desire to escape through wandering, love, and sex. "Shuckin' Sugar Blues," for example, includes the following lyrics:

   I've got your picture, and I'm going to put it in a frame.
   I've got your picture, I'll put it in a frame, shuckin' sugar.
   Then if you leave town, we can spy you just the same.

In "Sunshine Special" his attitude toward travel is less optimistic:

   Gonna leave on the Sunshine Special, gonna leave on the Santa Fe.
   Leave on the Sunshine Special, gonna leave in on the Santa Fe.
   Don't say nothin' about that Katy, because it's taken my
      brown from me.

In Jefferson's songs travel is portrayed as a means of attaining freedom and escape from the burdens of day-to-day life, even though wandering also leads to separation from loved ones and to loneliness. This conflict between "leaving" and "settling down" is a common theme in his music, illustrated in one of his best-known songs, "Match Box Blues":

   I'm sitting here wonderin' will a matchbox hold my clothes.
   I'm sitting here wonderin' will a matchbox hold my clothes.
   I ain't got so many matches, but I got so far to go.

Once again, the advantages of traveling appear to outweigh the pleasures of "settling down," although the message is not completely despairing. Jefferson's music clearly expressed the emotions many African Americans of his generation must have felt, leaving rural towns of East Texas and moving to the city of Dallas looking for work and a place to live.

Humor is another important element in Jefferson's blues, often presented with a wry irony that accentuates the innuendoes about sexuality and sexual relations. In "Bakershop Blues" he declares:

   I'm crazy about my light bread and my pigmeat on the side.
   I say, I'm crazy about my light bread with my pigmeat on the
      side.
   And if I could taste your jellyroll, honey, I'd be satisfied.

   I want to know if your jellyroll is fresh, I want to know if your
      jellyroll's stale.
   I want to know if your jellyroll is fresh, I want to know if your
      jellyroll's stale.
   I'm gonna haul off and buy some if I have to break a' loose in
      jail.

Sometimes Jefferson combines overt sexual references with humorous metaphors and analogies. In "Oil Well Blues," for example, he underscores his own sexuality with an almost self-mocking tone:

   Ain't nothin' to hurt you, sugar, ain't nothin' that's bad.
   It ain't nothin' can hurt you, honey, ain't nothin' bad.
   It's the first oil well that your little farm ever had.

In his series of songs, "That Black Snake Moan," Jefferson was even more obvious about his sexual allusion, articulating his lascivious sense of humor:

   Mmmm-m, black snake crawlin' in my room.
   Mmmm-m, black snake crawlin' in my room.
   Some prettty mama better come and get this black snake soon.

In his contrast to this almost insolent sexual humor is Jefferson's ambivalent attitude toward women. In some of his songs, they are called "good gal," "sugar," "baby," "honey," and "high brown," but in others they are scorned as "wild," "dirty mistreaters," and "deceitful." In "Elder Green's in Town," for example, Jefferson expresses his attraction for his woman with enthusiasm: (4)

   I've got a high brown, and she' long and tall.
   Lord, Lord, Lord, she'll make a panther squall.

But in "Got the Blues" he is both intrigued and repulsed by his "good gal":

   You can't ever tell what a woman's got on her mind.
   Man, you can't ever tell what a woman's got on her mind.
   You might think she's crazy about you; she's leaving you all
      the time.

The antagonism in "Piney Woods Money Mama" is directed toward a woman's scheming mother:

   Lord, heavy-hip mama, she done moved to the piney wood.
   A heavy-hip mama, she done moved to the piney wood.
   She's a high-steppin' mama, and she don't mean no man no
      good.

   She got ways like the devil and hair like a Indian squaw.
   She got ways like the devil and hair like a Indian squaw.
   She's been tryin' two years to get me to be her son-in-law.

In general, the women in Jefferson's songs are revered for their sexuality and allure but condemned for their manipulative personalities and for rejecting his love. "Pneumonia Blues" holds a woman responsible for his illness, "Prison Cell Blues" for his incarceration, "Deceitful Brownskin Blues" for robbing him, and "Peach Orchard Mama" for cheating on him.

The details of Jefferson's actual relationships with women and his family life are sketchy. According to Sam Price (1991), Jefferson and Roberta had a child soon after they married in the 1920s. Sheldon Harris (1979, 276) claims that Blind Lemon and Roberta had a son named Miles who was a musician. However, Theaul Howard (1993), Hobart Carter (1999a), and other who knew Jefferson say that he had no children. By casting women into such a wide range of roles in his songs, Jefferson was able to identify more fully with the experiences of his audience, an identification that carried over into other areas of life and suffering as well. "Mosquito Moan" recounts the displeasure caused by a common insect but retains a sense of humor:

   Lamp sittin' in my kitchen, mosquitoes all around my screen.
   Lamp sittin' in my kitchen, mosquitoes all around my screen.
   If I don't arrange to get a mosquito bomb, I'll be seldom seen.

Jefferson's songs also speak of many of the other pests and animals found in East Texas farming communities, including mules, cows, horses, snakes, and rabbits. Although these images served to convey a sense of time and place, Jefferson also used animals as references to travel, sexuality, and despair. "One Dime Blues," "Broke and Hungry," and "Tin Cup Blues" comment poignantly on the poverty and oppression rampant among African Americans. In "Tin Cup Blues" Jefferson laments:

   I stood on the corner, and I almost bust my head.
   I stood on the corner and almost bust my head.
   I couldn't earn enough money to buy me a loaf of bread.

   My gal's a housemaid, and she earns a dollar a week.
   I said, my gal's a housemaid, and she earns a dollar a week.
   I'm so hungry on payday, I can hardly speak.

   Now gather 'round me, people, let me tell you a true fact.
   I said gather 'round me, people, and let me tell you a true fact.
   That tough luck has struck me, and the rats is sleepin' in my hat.

In addition to the personal hardships of his audience, Jefferson sang about the ravages of a natural disaster in "Rising High Water Blues." He also sang about the injustices of the criminal justice system in his songs about prison life, although there is no record that he actually spent time in jail. "Hangman's Blues" demonstrates Jefferson's ability to project himself into another man's fear and anxiety:

   Oh, the mean old hangman, he's waitin' to tighten up that noose.
   Said, mean old hangman waitin' to tighten up that noose.
   Lord, I'm so scared I am tremblin' in my shoes.

   Jury heard my case, and it said my hands was red.
   Jurymen heard my case and said my hands was red.
   And judge, he sentenced me to be hangin' till I'm dead.

Jefferson recorded two versions of "Hangman's Blues." The first was more dramatic, with a fast, pulsating guitar accompaniment designed to simulate the rapid heartbeat of the condemned man. In "Hangman's Blues," as well as in "Prison Cell Blues," "Lectric Chair Blues," "Lock Step Blues," and "Blind Lemon's Penitentiary Blues," he depicted jail life as grim and cruel and criticized the unfairness of the court system. The bluesman's songs about prison and the longing for freedom were not his most popular, but they nonetheless reflected the social conditions of the times and represented themes that were vital to the country blues tradition.

Although the lyrics of Jefferson's songs are evocative, the technical and production qualities of the Paramount recordings are poor. His two released songs on OKeh are heard to better advantage, but they lack the lyric scope of those made for Paramount. Had the overall fidelity of his Paramount recordings been greater, they might have served as a more definitive metaphor of his life and career, which has been obscured by myth and scattered fragments of documentation.

In sum, the caricature of Jefferson's only known publicity photo published in the Swedish blues magazine Jefferson remains an ironic postscript to his enduring legacy. The singer 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 editor Tommy Lofgren would put new words in Swedish in the singer's mouth: "Can I change my shirt now? Is the world ready for me yet?"

(1.) This article builds directly on my earlier work on Blind Lemon Jefferson (see Govenar 1991; Govenar and Brakefield 1998) but focuses on new research and interviews conducted by the author with Quince Cox in 1987 and 1999 and with Hobart Carter in 1999 and interviews conducted by David Evans and Luigi Monge with these two informants in 1999.

(2.) According to Holland, Ashford left Dallas some time after 1936 and started a business in Tulsa before moving to Chicago and later to San Francisco, where he died and was buried in 1976. In Chicago, Ashford changed his name to Aaron Ali and became a teacher and minister of Islam. He was a colleague of Malcolm X and was associated with Temple no. 26.

(3.) Blind Lemon: Prince of Country Blues by Alan Govenar in collaboration with Akin Babatunde, was premiered at the Majestic Theatre in Dallas, Texas, May 27-June 12, 1999. It was also produced at the Addison Water Tower in Addison, Texas, May 24-June 16, 2001.

(4.) Samuel Charters discusses "Elder Green's in Town" in his book The Bluesmen (1967, 179-181), but this recording was never released by the OKeh label.

DISCOGRAPHY 

Dickinson, Reverend Emmitt. Death of Blind Lemon. Paramount 12945 (1930).

Jefferson, Blind Lemon. Black snake dream blues. Paramount 12510 (1927).

--. Black snake moan. OKeh 8455 (1927).

--. Bakershop blues. Paramount 12852 (1929).

--. Blind Lemon's penitentiary blues. Paramount 12666 (1928).

--. Broke and hungry. Paramount 12443 (1926).

--. Corinna blues. Paramount 12367 (1926).

--. D. B. blues. Paramount 12712 (1928).

--. Deceitful brownskin blues. Paramount 12551 (1927).

--. Elder Green's in town. OKeh unissued (1927).

--. Got the blues. Paramount 12354 (1926).

--. Hangman's blues. Paramount 12679, matrix 20751 (1928).

--. Jack o' diamond blues. Paramount 12373 (1926).

--. Lectric chair blues. Paramount 12608 (1928).

--. Lock step blues. Paramount 12679 (1928).

--. Long distance moan. Paramount 12852 (1929).

--. Match box blues. OKeh 8455 (1927).

--. Match box blues. Paramount 12474 (1927).

--. Mosquito moan. Paramount 12899 (1929).

--. Oil well blues. Paramount 12771 (1929).

--. One dime blues. Paramount 12585 (1927).

--. Peach orchard mama. Paramount 12801 (1929).

--. Piney woods money mama. Paramount 12650 (1928).

--. Pneumonia blues. Paramount 12880 (1929).

Jefferson, Blind Lemon. Prison cell blues. Paramount 12622 (1928).

--. Rising high water blues. Paramount 12487 (1927).

--. See that my grave's kept clean. Paramount 12585 (1927).

--. Shuckin' sugar blues. Paramount 12454 (1926).

--. Sunshine special. Paramount 12593 (1927).

--. That black snake moan. Paramount 12407 (1926).

--. That black snake moan no. 2. Paramount 12756 (1929).

--. Tin cup blues. Paramount 12756 (1929).

REFERENCES

Alyn, Glen. 1994. I say me for a parable: The oral autobiography of Mance Lipscomb. New York: Da Capo Press.

Brown, Roger S. 1975. Recording pioneer Polk Brockman. Living Blues 23: 31.

Calt, Stephen. n.d. Liner notes, Blind Lemon Jefferson, king of the country blues. Yazoo 1069.

Carter, Hobart. 1999a. Interview with David Evans and Luigi Monge. Wortham, Tex., March 14.

--. 1999b. Interview with the author. Wortham, Tex., June 7.

Charters, Samuel. 1959. The country blues. New York: Rinehart.

--. 1967. The bluesmen. New York: Oak Publications.

Cox, Quince. 1987. Interview with the author. Wortham, Tex., March 18.

--. 1999a. Interview with David Evans and Luigi Monge. Wortham, Tex., March 14.

--. 1999b. Interview with the author. Wortham, Tex., June 7.

Evans, David. 1971. Rubin Lacy. In Nothing but the blues, edited by Mike Leadbitter, London: Hanover. 239-245.

--. 2000. Personal correspondence with the author, March 8.

Govenar, Alan. 1991. That black snake moan: The music and mystery of Blind Lemon Jefferson. In Bluesland, edited by Pete Welding and Toby Byron, 16-37. New York: Dutton.

--. 1995. Meeting the blues. New York: Da Capo Press.

Govenar, Alan and Jay F. Brakefield. 1998. Deep Ellum and Central Track: Where the black and white worlds of Dallas converged. Denton: University of North Texas Press.

Greenough, Jane. 1947. T-Bone blues: T-Bone Walker's story in his own words. Record Changer (October): 5-6, 12.

Harris, Sheldon. 1979. Blues who's who. New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House.

Holland, Lurline. n.d. Unpublished handwritten notes. Texas African American Photography Archive, Dallas, Tex.

Hopkins, Lightnin'. 1959. Reminiscences of Blind Lemon. In The roots of Lightnin' Hopkins Folkways FTS 31011.

Howard, Theaul. 1993. Interview with Jay Brakefield. Mexia, Tex., October and November.

Hurd, Charlie. 1993. Interview with Jay Brakefield. Mexia, Tex., November.

Lemon Jefferson Dies in Chicago. 1930. Wortham [Texas] Journal January 3.

Lippman, Laura. 1983. Blind Lemon sang the blues: Wortham man recalls his memories of musician. Waco Tribune-Herald June 2: 11A.

McCormick, Mack. 1993. Telephone conversation with Jay Brakefield, July 29.

Negro Business Bulletin. 1925. Dallas, Tex.: Negro Business Bureau.

Oliver, Paul. 1984. Blues off the record: Thirty years of blues commentary. New York: Da Capo Press.

O'Neal, Jim. 1974. Living blues interview: Houston Stackhouse. Living Blues 17: 20-36.

Price, Sam. 1991. Interview with Jay Brakefield. Dallas, Tex., June 7.

Spivey, Victoria. 1966. Blind Lemon Jefferson and I had a ball. Record Research 78: 9.

Steinberg, Richard U. 1982. See that my grave is kept clean. Living Blues 83: 24-25.

Stillman, Sam. 1992. Interview with Jay Brakefield. Dallas, Tex., March 2.

Thibodeaux, James. 1997. Interview with the author. Dallas, Tex., May 27.

Uzzel, Robert L. 1982. Music rooted in Texas soil. Living Blues 83: 22-23.

Watson, Willard. 1992. Interview with Jay Brakefield. Dallas, Tex., July 16.

Wolfe, Charles, and Kip Lornell. 1992. The life and legend of Leadbelly. New York: HarperCollins.

Alan Govenar is a writer, folklorist, photographer, and filmmaker. He is the author of Meeting the Blues (Taylor, 1988), Deep Ellum and Central Track (University of North Texas Press, 1998), and African American Frontiers (ABC-CLIO, 2000), among others. His documentary films include The Devil's Swing, Deep Ellum Blues, Battle of the Guitars, and Cigarette Blues. He is president of Documentary Arts, a nonprofit organization founded to present new perspectives on diverse cultural traditions.