Blind Lemon Jefferson

It's the birthday of "Blind" Lemon Jefferson, born on a farm in Couchman, Texas, in about 1893. There is a lot of conflicting information about Jefferson and most of it comes from others' memories of him. Census records and his draft registration don't agree on a date or even a year of birth. There are only two confirmed photographs of him. No one knows much about his musical training, but it seems he first picked up the guitar when he was a young teenager. Former residents of nearby Wortham, Texas, remember him playing his guitar in front of the bank at lunchtime, collecting change in a tin cup.

Jefferson began playing picnics and parties in the region, and eventually he made his way to Dallas. He performed every day on the corner of Central and Elm, near a train stop where the black workers would get off at the end of their day to visit the neighborhood bars and dance halls. Stories vary, but Dallas was probably the place where he first met fellow blues musician Huddie Ledbetter, known as Lead Belly, prior to World War I. Lead Belly had been in the business longer, but Jefferson was the better musician, and Lead Belly later wrote "Blind Lemon's Blues" in tribute to his friend and erstwhile music partner. Another legend holds that Jefferson hired a young T-Bone Walker to guide him around Dallas. Jefferson paid Walker in guitar lessons, and Walker went on to become a blues legend in his own right. Jefferson may have made money on the side as a bootlegger and a professional wrestler, depending on who's telling the story. He also had a way with the ladies, according to blues singer Victoria Spivey, who recalled in 1966: "Although he was supposed to be completely blind, I still believe he could see a little bit. If he couldn't, he darn sure could feel his way 'round — the old wolf!"

In the early 1920s, Jefferson began traveling: to the Mississippi Delta, and Memphis, and maybe even farther than that. Late in 1925, he was "discovered" by a Texas talent scout, who took Jefferson to Paramount Records in Chicago; there he recorded two gospel songs under an alias. Over the next three years, he recorded nearly a hundred songs and became the first country blues musician to develop a national following. He was expected to produce one record a month, and in between recording sessions, he traveled around the South. Everybody had a story about seeing him at the local venue. He seemed to have an uncanny ability to "see" even through sightless eyes; musician Lance Lipscomb said later: "He had a tin cup, wired on the neck of his guitar. And when you pass to give him something, why he'd thank you. But he would never take no pennies. You could drop a penny in there and he'd know the sound. He'd take and throw it away." Delta musician Ishman Lacey said, "He carried a pearl-handled .44, and he could shoot the head off a chicken. And he couldn't see nary a lick. Just did it from the sound he heard."

His death of heart failure is also shrouded in mystery. His body was found on a Chicago street after an especially brutal December snowstorm, and it's been said he was the victim of a car accident, or attacked by a dog, or robbed and killed over royalty money, or abandoned by his chauffeur, or poisoned by a jealous lover, or simply lost his way. He was only about 36 years old. He was buried in Wortham, Texas, in a grave that remained unmarked until 1967; in the 1990s, fans raised money to erect a granite marker engraved with Jefferson's own lyrics: "Lord, it's one kind favor I'll ask of you. See that my grave is kept clean."

-Writer's Almanac