Blind Lemon Jefferson - That Black Snake Moan (2008)

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Blind Lemon's moan

Only one known photography of him exists and his recording career spread over just a short four-year period, during which he cut about a hundred songs (some re-recorded several times). Like for most of the early bluesmen/women of the same period the details of his life remain obscure and legend sometimes replaces historical facts. Despite the "famous" awful quality of the 78 rpm discs produced by Paramount Records, his influence on blues music was tremendous and durable.

Born in September 1893 in a small rural community around Streetman, Texas, near Wortham, about 120 km south east of Dallas, Lemon Henry Jefferson led the classic early life of many country bluesman at that time : learning to play guitar in his teens, playing at picnics, parties and other gatherings, later busking in Dallas, where he met and played with Leadbelly (before he went to jail) in the early 1920s. Though Leadbelly was the elder, he was impressed by BLJ's virtuosity on guitar and later wrote the tribute song "Blind Lemon's Blues". It is almost certain that BLJ traveled to the Mississippi Delta and Memphis, and probably further.