TeachRock

people:
Blind Lemon Jefferson

(1893 – 1929) One of the first Blues musicians to sell records in significant numbers, Lemon Henry Jefferson was born blind on a farm in east Texas to sharecropper parents. He took up guitar in his early teens — perhaps inspired by the many traveling guitarists who made their way through the farms and plantations of the South performing Blues and dance tunes for the workers — and was soon performing at picnics and parties. By 1912 he was a regular performer around Dallas, where he sometimes performed with Huddie Ledbetter, a.k.a. Leadbelly. In 1925 Jefferson was discovered by a scout...