AccessMyLibrary provides FREE access to over 30 million articles from top publications available through your library.
Create a link to this page
Copy and paste this link tag into your Web page or blog:
The language of Blind Lemon Jefferson: the covert theme of blindness.
I am an invisible man.
(Ellison 1986, 17)
And it's tough to see a man go to the rack and almost starve and die.
--Blind Lemon Jefferson ("Tin Cup Blues," 1929)
I can't see ya, but I can smell ya!
--Blind Lemon Jefferson (quoted in James [1997, 14])
Because of his strong artistic influence and commercial impact on the newborn country blues race-records field, Blind Lemon Jefferson has often been considered by music critics as an archetypal figure. If it is true that "the blues are the true facts of life expressed in words and song, inspiration, feeling and understanding"--as bluesman Willie Dixon remarked (Dixon and Snowden 1989, 2)--then nobody better than Jefferson depicted African-American life in the 1920s South. After working as an itinerant street musician for more than ten years, he began an extremely successful recording career, which lasted from 1926 to 1929 and resulted in a total of 110 sides (including all his alternate takes), of which seven were not issued and six are not yet available in any format. (1) His compositions reflect a strong and complex personality expressing, in an ironic, humorous, sad, yet never contradictory and self-pitying manner, his own way of understanding existence.
- Blind Lemon meets Leadbelly.(Blind Lemon Jefferson, Huddie Ledbetter)
- Magazine article from: Black Music Research Journal Lornell, Kip March 22, 2000 700+ words
...Leadbelly met and shared his musical knowledge with Blind Lemon Jefferson. Becoming a Man In the years immediately before he met Blind Lemon Jefferson, Huddie Ledbetter picked cotton and undertook arduous...
- Editor's introduction.(Blind Lemon Jefferson)(Editorial)
- Magazine article from: Black Music Research Journal Evans, David March 22, 2000 700+ words
...make commercial recordings, Blind Lemon Jefferson is generally--and appropriately...sellers would hold back Blind Lemon Jefferson's discs, stating that...contained at least one or two Blind Lemon Jefferson discs. Even though his music...
- Musical innovation in the blues of Blind Lemon Jefferson.
- Magazine article from: Black Music Research Journal Evans, David March 22, 2000 700+ words
...guitar-playing bluesmen had made records before Blind Lemon Jefferson, it is he who wears the crown for being the first...could successfully market recording artists like Blind Lemon Jefferson. The recording of guitar-accompanied blues was...
- Blind Lemon Jefferson: the myth and the man.
- Magazine article from: Black Music Research Journal Govenar, Alan March 22, 2000 700+ words
In recent years, the life of Blind Lemon Jefferson has been the subject of considerable speculation.(1...evidence. Generally, blues scholars have identified Lemon Jefferson's birth date as September 24, 1897, although census...
- Blind Lemon Blues.(Theater review)
- Magazine article from: Variety Stasio, Marilyn February 26, 2007 700+ words
...Ledbetter Cavin Yarbrough Blind Lemon Jefferson Akin Babatunde With: Benita...by legendary blues artist Blind Lemon Jefferson are enough to make any blues...throughout his plays. "Blind Lemon Jefferson was the voice of black America...
- Tony winner Lilias White will star in the Off B'way premiere of "Blind Lemon...
- Magazine article from: Variety January 15, 2007 700+ words
Tony winner Lilias White will star in the Off B'way premiere of "Blind Lemon Blues" starting Feb. 15 at the York Theaters at St. Peter's.
- Bluesman's legacy lives on in hometown of Wortham, Texas.
- Newspaper article from: Dallas Morning News (Dallas, TX) May 8, 2006 700+ words
...grave is kept clean." _Blind Lemon Jefferson ___ WORTHAM, Texas _ The...Wortham's the hometown of Blind Lemon Jefferson. The man whose "rolling...Leadbelly"). Now, I was in Blind Lemon Jefferson's hometown. The Blues...
- Roy Book Binder Singer-Songwriter Bluesman Pegleg 7033. (sound recording review)
- Magazine article from: Sing Out! Regenstreif, Mike September 22, 2002 700+ words
...these songs are written in tribute to blues artists that inspired Book Binder. "Blind Lemon," pays homage to the influential Texas bluesman Blind Lemon Jefferson and includes quotes from such Jefferson classics as "Matchbox Blues" and "See...
- He's got the blues.(The Filter: Events: WHERE TO GO, WHAT TO DO, WHO TO...
- Magazine article from: Texas Monthly February 1, 2007 700+ words
DALLAS In more than sixty songs, the musical "Blind Lemon Blues" examines the life of twenties blues-man Blind Lemon Jefferson, who played on the street corners of Dallas's Deep Ellum before being discovered...
- Roy Book Binder returns blues to its muddy roots.(TICKET)
- Newspaper article from: Sarasota Herald Tribune April 9, 2004 700+ words
...stereotypical bluesman. Like Arthur "Blind" Blake, Blind Lemon Jefferson and Charley Patton, the 1920s-era blues musicians...COURTESY PHOTO Roy Book Binder's influences are Blind Lemon Jefferson and Charley Patton.
Source: HighBeam Research, The language of Blind Lemon Jefferson: the covert theme of blindness.