Topic: The Influence of Blind Lemon Jefferson

[oddenda]

B.H. -

          The series on Atlanta artists is back up, save for the McTell piece.

pbl

[Johnm]

Hi all,
After having just read through the thread, I found that Lil' Son Jackson's recordings of "Blues Come To Texas" and "I Walked From Dallas", recorded for Arhoolie, have not previously been mentioned here.  Lil' Son would have been around 10-12-years old when Lemon recorded the songs that his renditions were modeled on, so Lemon evidently made an impression.  There was probably a time when if you lived in Texas and claimed to play the blues, you needed to be able to play one or two of Lemon's songs.
All best,
Johnm

[Le Trompeur]

George Mitchell mentioned once there was one single question he asked all of the blues musicians he recorded, "Who was your biggest influence?"  Without fail each one identified theirs as Blind Lemon Jefferson.

[frankie]

George Mitchell mentioned once there was one single question he asked all of the blues musicians he recorded, "Who was your biggest influence?"  Without fail each one identified theirs as Blind Lemon Jefferson.

That's interesting...  although based on the recordings he actually made, you'd have to say that the single most pervasive influence seems to he Blind Boy Fuller - his songs are all over the recordings that George Mitchell made!

[Lignite]

Here's a theory; Nobody really sounds or plays like Blind Lemon Jefferson with a few exceptions such as Isaiah Nettles. I think, through his many 1920s Paramount recordings and their widespread popularity, that Lemon's main influence was to make many a young man want to take up guitar playing. After this new population of wanna-be bluesmen had gotten a bit more proficient on their instruments by the 1930s, they heard the recordings of Blind Boy Fuller who was much more accessible musically. His guitar licks and song structures could be copied and adapted much easier than anything by Lemon Jefferson. Lemon lit the spark and Fuller made the fire.

[Rivers]

Exactly what I was thinking. Some things never change, but they might get lost in time.

[mtzionmemorialfund]

Exactly what I was thinking. Some things never change, but they might get lost in time.

Ditto.


The Greenwood (MS) Commonwealth, Oct 5, 1928.

[sandmountainslim]

Now that newspaper clipping is awesome and sad at the same time    

[CF]

Sad? Why?

[sandmountainslim]

Sad because it was so near to his passing.  Just about a year or so.

[Johnm]

Hi all,
One musician whose influence from Lemon shows up only intermittently in his recorded output is J. T. Smith.  The Lemon influence shows primarily in his tunes played in C position standard tuning.  Here are a couple, with apologies if non-U.S. Weenies can't watch the videos:

"Heart Bleeding Blues"


"Forty Five Blues"


All best,
Johnm

[Prof Scratchy]

European Weenies can access the videos by clicking on the red YouTube icon at bottom left - at least that works for me!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Johnm]

Thanks for the tip on the youtube work-around, Prof.  I hope it works for other non-U.S. Weenies, too.

[jostber]

I could not see that Pete Harris was mentioned in the thread. He recorded 13 songs with several Blind Lemon with one called "Blind Lemon's Song".

https://thedocumentrecordsstore.com/product/docd-5231/

Smith Casey also does "Jack O' Diamonds" and "Two White Horses Standing in Line" on the same CD.