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More Blues Brothersby
Bob Bowman | |
A
few months back we wrote a couple of columns about blues musicians Blind
Lemon Jefferson of Wortham and Sam
(Lightnin’) Hopkins of Centerville.
We weren’t surprised when a friend reminded us that East
Texas has produced a number of other blues greats.
While the Mississippi
Delta gets credit for creating the blues with innovators like B.B. King and Muddy
Waters, some of the earliest blues pioneers lived and played in East
Texas. |
Henry
Qualls, a blues singer from Elmo, near Kaufman.
Photo
courtesy Bob Bowman |
Here
are some other pioneers who, like Jefferson
and Hopkins, started
in East Texas.
Just outside
Navasota, on the banks
of the Navasota River, Mance Lipscomb
was born in 1895 as Bodyglin Lipscomb. He later chose the nickname Mance, short
for Emancipation.
Lipscomb started playing the guitar as a boy and developed
a style that made him popular at Saturday night dances. With his style of playing
slide with a pocketknife, he performed with Pete Seger and the Grateful Dead.
Frank Sinatra once hired him to play on his yacht with girlfriend Mia Farrow.
Lipscomb
died in 1976 and was buried in a Navasota graveyard.
Alger
Alexander, a cousin of Lightnin’
Hopkins, was born at Leona, south of Centerville,
in 1900. A drifter and ex-con, Alexander wound up in New York playing for jazz
and blues stars. Alexander was known for the work songs he heard in East
Texas. He died in 1954.
Blind
Willie Johnson, born near Marlin
in 1902 or 1903, was blinded at seven when his father threw lye in his face during
a domestic squabble. He shaped his style from gospel music and when he started
recording in 1927, he became one of the country’s biggest sellers in the blues
field. He died in 1949.
Barry, west of Corsicana,
was the birthplace of Melvin (Lil’ Son) Jackson in 1917. He broke into
the blues business when he sent Gold Star Records an amusement park disk he made
of a blues song. His lazy, resonant voice and his simple guitar style kept him
busy until an automobile crash ended his music career. He died in 1976 in Dallas.
Another small town--Elmo, near Kaufman--produced
guitar picker and blues singer Henry Qualls in 1934. He made his recording
debut with ‘Blues From Elmo, Texas,’ singing songs by Hopkins, Johnson, Jackson
and himself.
While Texas claims to be the home of Huddie (Leadbelly)
Ledbetter, the master of the blues 12-string guitar, he was actually born
just across the Louisiana line in Shiloh in 1888. The family did, however, moved
to Leigh, Texas, when he was five. | |
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