Part II - Rock's First Act, The History of Early Rock and Roll 1929 - 1959
The Texas blues breeds two performers whose unique style will influence the blues,
rock and roll and popular music, as a whole, for generations: Blind Lemon Jefferson & Leadbelly
Part I - Charlie Patton, Son House and the beginnings of the Delta Blues Click Here
Companion Soundtrack Jukebox with 31 Songs that started Rock and Roll Click Here
Blind Lemon Jeffersoni
Lemon Jefferson was born blind in 1893 in the now defunct town of Coutchman (near present day Brenham). Lemon, his given name, which was actually somewhat popular at the time, miraculously managed to develop a unique style of playing guitar that would come to heavily influence blues, rhythm and blues, country and rock and roll guitarists for decades to come, his impact still being felt to this day. Many times, startlingly divorced from the vocal melody of the song he was performing, his arpeggio guitar technique – and the notes he was playing – would take on a life of their own. It can be said that he was certainly one of the first to invent the technique for what we would term, in the modern day vernacular, ‘Lead Guitar’.
This style differentiated him from the rest of the Texas bluesmen and from many other blues performers, regardless of their region. It was this style that has made him such an enduring legend. It can be reasonably argued that Robert Johnson and Blind Lemon Jefferson are the two most influential Bluesmen that ever lived, largely based on their command over the guitar, and their contributions to a style of playing that would be the basis for guitar within rock and roll.
Although very popular in his own time, and until 2007 when his US Military draft card was discovered, his life, in many aspects, from the year of his birth, to how he died, to whether or not he was totally blind - and from what age, to exactly where he was buried, had been in question for many decades. The discovery of the draft card, which was pretty much used to show that he was not fit to serve in the armed forces due to his blindness, shed new light on his somewhat mysterious life. The card itself was handwritten in the first person, presupposing the question, since Jefferson was blind, who filled out the card? Regardless of who filled out the card, it was accepted by the US military as authentic.
The card reports that Lemon Jefferson was indeed totally blind, and had been that way since birth. Why he is wearing glasses in his only known photograph remains a mystery.
One thing that is no mystery is that Blind Lemon was an unqualified success in his own era to the extent that he could afford a car and chauffeur to drive him.
Despite the fact that Blind Lemon was far ahead of his time as a musician, he was none-the-less widely accepted and wildly popular in his day. A major reason for this may be that the nature of his music seems rooted in the traditional folk style. His protégé, Huddy “Leadbelly” Leadbetter would become even more known for this than Blind Lemon. In fact, it can be considered a trait of the Texas blues that it readily incorporated melodies, and even complete songs, some of which may have had origins dating back to 16th, 17th, and 18th century Europe, into the repertoire of Texas blues performers.
The Texas Blues still incorporates many elements of traditional blues - such as performing with only voice and guitar - and through following the blues style whereby a stanza is sung, the same stanza is repeated and then a third, sometimes rhyming stanza, follows. Blind Lemon follows this pattern on such songs as “Broke and Hungry” and “Hangman’s Blues”.
On his signature song, the haunting masterpiece “See That My Grave is Kept Clean” he departs from this pattern. In this song he begins:
Well, there’s one kind favor I’ll ask of you
Well, there’s one kind favor I’ll ask of you
Lord, there’s one kind favor I’ll ask of you
See that my grave is kept clean
He repeats the opening stanza three times and follows with a fourth, non-rhyming stanza. The rest of the song follows this format. The lyrics form a rather bleak lament of a man who seems pretty certain that he’s going to be dead soon and he seems quite obsessed with his funeral, burial, and the state of his grave once he’s gone. Still, the melody is entrancing, as is Blind Lemon’s melancholy, somewhat depressed, and deliberately thoughtful approach to the vocals. The question can be raised is it Jefferson himself who is so consumed with the thought of his final days, or is he singing in the third-person? One thing that is certain is that the lyrics border on the poetic, if not in fact actual poetry. Even by today’s standards, it is a brilliant song.
Blind Lemon’s cousin Alec Jefferson is quoted in the liner notes of “Blind Lemon Jefferson, Classic Sides” as saying that when Blind Lemon was no more than 17, around 1910, that he would play house parties for rough crowds until four o’clock in the morning. He would perform all night, just him and his guitar, sometimes starting as early as eight o’clock.
By the age of 24, around 1917, Blind Lemon had moved to Dallas where he met a man who would become his protégé and another future legend of the Texas Blues; Huddy Leadbetter. Better known as “Leadbelly”, Leadbetter followed Blind Lemon despite being 5 years older. Blind Lemon toiled in Dallas, performing with Leadbelly, until 1926 when he moved to Chicago to begin his recording career.
Hit after hit soon ensued. Blind Lemon’s recording career began with spirituals as a gospel singer where he performed under the pseudonym of Deacon L. J. Bates (the L.J. no doubt standing for Lemon Jefferson). He would use this name on and off throughout his recording years, and even used it on the first recording of “See That My Grave Is Kept Clean”.
A prodigious performer, Blind Lemon, who recorded for Paramount Records, laid down over 100 tracks over just three years from 1926 to 1929 when he died. In 1927, due to a dispute over royalties, he attempted to leave Paramount and switch to OKeh records. While there he recorded two more of his best known recordings” “Matchbox Blues” and “Black Snake Moan”, which was the B-side to the recording. Most likely due to his still in-force contract with Paramount, these two songs would be his only OKeh releases.
It is said that Blind Lemon did so well with sales of his recordings that he could afford not only his own car, but a chauffeur as well, since his car would have been useless to him without someone to drive him around (one must remember that Blind Lemon was blind).
Blind Lemon’s best piece was probably the deeply haunting “See That My Grave is Kept Clean”. A lyrical masterpiece that clearly borders on the poetic as the singer asks a friend, in the first person, for a favor after his death. The singer also imagines his own funeral.
Blind Lemon’s own demise came in the winter of 1929 while still in Chicago. The details of his death remain sketchy to this day and various theories abound but perhaps the most plausible is this one: Left abandoned during a particularly bad winter storm it is believed that Blind Lemon became disoriented, got lost, and either froze to death or suffered a heart attack. The circumstrances under which Blind Lemon found himself alone in a raging blizzard or at least in a severe snow storm remain a mystery to this day.
After Lemon’s death, Paramount Records paid for his body to be taken by train back to his native Texas. He was buried at Worthan Negro Cemetary. Unfortunately, in real life, after Blind Lemon’s untimely death, his grave was not kept clean but fell into a state of utter neglect. It was not until 1997 that a small monument was erected to Blind Lemon and placed in the approximate location of his grave. But, all’s well that end’s well, and today Blind Lemon’s grave is indeed kept clean.
Suffice it to say that Blind Lemon revolutionized guitar playing by playing licks along with the vocal rather than just strunning along to the melody or playing chords. Along with Lonnie Johnson (no relation to Robert Johnson), Blind Lemon invented the style that would come to define what we refer to today as Lead Guitar technique, a style that has come to be copied by countless rock guitarists throughout the following decades.
Today we think of Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Eddie Van Halen, Jeff Beck, Mark Knopfler, and many other guitar virtuosos as the ultimate guitar heroes, but Blind Lemon Jefferson was one of the musicians who started it all. By incorporating single string arpeggios (a group of notes which are played one after the other, either going up or going down - the notes all belonging to one chord), Blind Lemon helped introduce something brand new. Robert Johnson would be best remembered for using single-string arpeggios in his blues recordings, but without a doubt he got that style from Blind Lemon, and perhaps, to a lesser extent, another of the grandfathers of modern blues-based, rock guitar; New Orleans’ Lonnie Johnson.
From the Wikipedia entry on Blind Lemon it states, in part: “Despite his commercial success, Jefferson stands alone in a category of his own. His musical style was extremely intense and individualistic, bearing little resemblance to the typical Texas blues style of the 1930s. Jefferson's singing and self-accompaniment seemed only loosely connected, and he appeared to improvise his accompaniment. His irregular vocal style and his freely structured field holler rhythms made the tension between his guitar and his voice wildly unpredictable.” At his death in Chicago, Blind Lemon was just 38 years old
Huddy “Leadbelly” Leadbetter
Born on a plantation in Mooringsport, Louisiana in 1888, Huddy Leadbetter, better known as “Leadbelly”, led a colorful life that included three prison terms, each time he was pardoned or released early on account of good behavior. He was imprisoned for killing one of his own relatives in a fight in 1918, and went back to prison in 1930 for trying to kill yet another man. He gained the nickname “Leadbelly” by his fellow inmates for his toughness, and as a play on his last name. As for his toughness, even regarded as such by his fellow convicts, Leadbelly was once stabbed in the neck by another inmate, only to turn on his attacker, and, despite the wound, taking the knife away from the man and nearly killing him with it
Despite this reputation, Leadbelly was far from a thug, being described by one of the men who discovered him, Allen Lomax, as very being a very charming soul. In fact, in his recordings he has a very sweet, somewhat high pitched, singing voice, nearly suggesting a certain naiveté or carefree attitude. It was this charm that led the Lomax's in future years to successfully lobby for his early release.
Leadbelly liked to boast that in his early days he slept with from 8 -10 women a night, certainly quite a boast, but at even half that number, which still seems absolutely impossible, one wonders how he would have had any time for singing. He was first discovered and recorded by noted folklorist John Lomax while in prison while Lomax was on a mission from the Library of Congress to record native American folk music before it vanished. Accompanying Lomax on these ventures was his son, Allen, who would carry on his fathers work. As mentioned, so impressed were the Lomax’s by him, that they championed his early release.
Invaluable was his knowledge of original American folk songs largely written in the 19th century, such as field hollers like “Pick a Bail of Cotton” and the traditional standard “Goodnight Irene” or “Irene, Goodnight”, most likely written by Gussie Davis in 1888. Began European tour in 1949, but contracted ALS, and died later that same year in NYC.
Leadbelly was the protégé of the blues master, Blind Lemon Jefferson, despite being five years his junior. He had a sound that encompassed traditional or folk elements rather than those of the Mississippi Delta Bluesmen. Leadbelly’s songs were traditional in nature rather than particularly bluesy, as we would define or think about the Blues (certainly this notion was seconded by Van Morrison in the television documentary “American Songbook: A Century of American Song”).
Like his mentor Blind Lemon, he strayed from traditional blues, but unlike Blind Lemon who developed a unique style, where his vocals and guitar playing many times appeared to be unrelated, Leadbelly pretty much stuck to recording old songs he and other field workers used to sing while picking cotton all day long under the hot Mississippi Delta sun.
The Texas Blues as performed by Leadbelly and Blind Lemon were far a field from Mississippi Delta Bluesman like Charlie Patton, Son House and Muddy Waters. It would be performers like Robert Johnson who would eventually merge, or bring the two styles together. It was said the RObert Johnson could play anything he heard. Like other Bluesmen of his time, he played some of his own songs, but he also included popular songs of the day by other artists in his repertoire.
Leadbelly probably did more for the preservation of the traditional American folk song than any other person who ever lived. Without John & Allen Lomax’s recordings of Leadbelly singing American standards like “Goodnight, Irene”, “Midnight Special”, and “Gallis Pole”, all might have been lost to the ages.
For an analysis of the migration of one of these ancient folk songs from Middle Ages Europe to the USA and Rock and Roll, see the borrom of this page.
Indebted to the Lomaxes for helping to secure his freedom from prison, Lead Belly allowed Alan to take him under his wing, and in late 1934 migrated to New York City with him, where he attained some measure of fame, but little money. In 1935 he married Martha Promise and began recording with the American Record Corporation (ARC), but achieved little commercial success with these records. Part of the reason for the poor record sales may have been that ARC insisted he record blues songs rather than the folk for which he was better known. By 1939 he found himself back in jail, this time for assault.
Upon his release in 1940, Lead Belly returned to New York City where he met, and mentored a young Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, helping to sow the seeds of a folk revival that would progress for years through to the likes of a new generation of performers like Joan Baez, Peter, Paul and Mary, and Bob Dylan, among others.
During these years Leadbelly recorded for RCA, the Library of Congress, and later, after heading to California in 1944, Capitol Records. Leadbelly was the first American country blues musician to see success in Europe, pre-dating a full-blown blues revival that would take place both in Europe and in America in the 1960’s.
In 1949 he began his first European tour with a trip to France, but fell ill before its completion, and was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease. Lead Belly died later that year in New York City, and was buried in the Shiloh Baptist Church.
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Here is Blind Lemon Jefferson's performance of "Black Snake Moan" one his more straight-forward blues offerings
and one that is a good example of his disassociated finger-picking style
Here's Bob Dylan singing Blind Lemon Jefferson's "See that my grave is kept clean" from his very first album.
Check out Blind Lemon's original version on our companion soundtrack jukebox by
clicking here
To see Leadbelly performing one of his more traditional folk tunes; "Pick a Bail of Cotton" Click Here
From 1995, here are Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant and Jimmy Page doing an acoustic version of Leadbelly's "Gallis Pole", re-titled "The Gallows Pole",
which they originally performed on their Led Zeppelin album Led Zeppellin III. For Leadbelly's original version check out our companion soundtrack
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"The Gallis Pole" A Folk Tune from Old World Europe to Rock and Roll
As an example of one of the traditional folk songs rescued from virtual obscurity and oblivion by Leadbelly and the Lomax’s, “The Gallis Pole” was a folk song that had it origins in Europe, most likely Finland, where dozens of versions were written. Other countries from Germany to Sweden also had versions. Eventually it made its way into English and, in turn, to America.
In 1970 Led Zeppelin would cover Leadbelly’s driving, furiously finger-picking, version of “Gallis Pole” (recorded in 1939 and included on his album In the Shadow of the Gallows Pole) as “The Gallows Pole” and included it on their album Led Zeppelin III. Later on, in the 1990’s, Robert Plant and Jimmy Page would re-record the song during an acoustic performance. Leadbelly’s percussive playing on the recording was probably very different from the way the song was originally performed, as a pure folk tune. Leadbelly’s version is yet another example of an early blues or folk tune turned into a song that, like Son House’s “Death Letter”, easily lent itself to rock and roll.
The song usually referred to a maiden about to be hanged, saved only at the last instance by her one true love who arrives in time with the gold to bribe the hangman which, in turn, saves her. In America, and in Leadbelly’s version, the person about to be hanged is not a woman, but in fact, a man. Led Zeppelin’s rather macabre version is the only one to include the hangman actually going ahead and hanging his victim.
This is not the only instance where a folk tune has the victim originally cast as a woman. “The House of the Rising Sun”, about a New Orleans bordello, was for many years sung from a woman’s vantage point, having had her life ruined after becoming a prostitute. In the 1960’s The Animals changed the sex of the protagonist to that of a ruined man from that of a ruined woman.