Blind Lemon Jefferson

Blind Lemon Jefferson, born Lemon Henry Jefferson on September 24, 1893, sang the blues in a high, keening voice that cut through the scratch of his Paramount records like a knife through tin, and he played guitar in a fast, intricate style that was all his own. By the 1920s he was among the most popular and successful blues singers in the country, and he has come to be called the father of the Texas blues. "Long Lonesome Blues" from 1926 catches him at full stretch, voice wailing and guitar rolling underneath like a freight train that can't make up its mind.

His records sold, but his own generation couldn't copy him: that voice and those runs were too much his own. It was the later players who took up his songs and his style, and the line runs straight through Lead Belly and Lightnin' Hopkins, with B.B. King naming him among his biggest influences. His "See That My Grave Is Kept Clean" became a standard, and "Matchbox Blues" traveled all the way to the Beatles by way of a Carl Perkins rockabilly version that never credited him. He died on December 19, 1929, and the blues has been chasing his shadow ever since.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.