| Nine Hundred fifteenth in the Famous People (FP) Series - Blind Lemon Jefferson |
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Lemon Henry "Blind Lemon" Jefferson (September 24, 1893 – December 19, 1929) was an American blues and gospel singer, songwriter, and musician. He was one of the most popular blues singers of the 1920s and has been called the "Father of the Texas Blues"
Lemon was born blind (or possibly partially blind), near Coutchman, Texas. He began playing the guitar in his early teens and soon after he began performing at picnics and parties. He became a street musician, playing in East Texas towns in front of barbershops and on street corners. According to his cousin Alec Jefferson, quoted in the notes for Blind Lemon Jefferson, Classic Sides:
They were rough. Men were hustling women and selling bootleg and Lemon was singing for them all night... he'd start singing about eight and go on until four in the morning... mostly it would be just him sitting there and playing and singing all night.
In the early 1910s, Jefferson began traveling frequently to Dallas, where he met and played with the blues musician Lead Belly. Jefferson was one of the earliest and most prominent figures in the blues movement developing in the Deep Ellum section of Dallas. He moved to Deep Ellum on a more permanent basis by 1917, where he met Aaron Thibeaux Walker, also known as T-Bone Walker.
In 1927, Lemon recorded another of his classic songs, the haunting "See That My Grave Is Kept Clean". (again using the pseudonym Deacon L. J. Bates)
Jefferson died in Chicago at 10:00 a.m. on December 19, 1929, of what his death certificate said was "probably acute myocarditis". For many years, rumors circulated that a jealous lover had poisoned his coffee, but a more likely explanation is that he died of a heart attack after becoming disoriented during a snowstorm. Some have said that he died of a heart attack after being attacked by a dog in the middle of the night. The book Tolbert's Texas claimed that he was killed while being robbed of a large royalty payment by a guide escorting him to Union Station to catch a train home to Texas.
His gravesite is now kept clean by a cemetery committee in Wortham, Texas.
FP cemetery caches are always placed with regards to the location, so please be mindful of your presence here, watch where you step and be respectful of the residents interred here. Please carefully re-hide the container better to maintain the integrity of the cache.
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