"Saturday,
September 13th, 1997, Wortham Texas. Don
and I drove south in the early bright from the Dallas area to the small burial
ground just outside of the country town of Wortham (pop. 1,019). We had been
listening for an hour and a half to a freshly made audio tape of Blind Lemon
Jefferson recordings, appreciating the lyrics of such greats as “Piney Woods
Money Mama”, “Oil Well Blues”, and most appropriately “See That My Grave Is
Kept Clean”. We left the pickup on the
roadside at 9:20 and walked up to the far side of the Freestone County Black
Cemetery, where an awning had been put up for the service.
Jefferson had been buried in that
graveyard on a very rainy day in December 1929. Most of the Jefferson family is
buried in Teague, about 20 miles away, but the weather was so bad when Lemon’s
body arrived by train from a snowy Chicago it was decided to lay him to rest in
Wortham. The grave was never properly marked.
One man who attended Lemon’s funeral
was Quince Cox, now 94 years old. He had known Lemon around 1915 when the
singer would walk into town with his guitar on Saturday evenings to entertain
the townsfolk. Mr. Cox told us yesterday that he shone shoes in the barbershop
of a hotel in Wortham and would clear a space on the porch and set a chair down
for Lemon to perform from. Then the dancing would begin. Lemon, the youngest of
several brothers and sisters, was living at the time with his mother Classie on
the small farm at Couchman where he was born in 1893. The hotel building, being
on the wrong side of the tracks, was torn down many years ago.
As a young boy, Blind Lemon Jefferson
was seen and heard on the streets of Wortham with a tin cup affixed to his
guitar, playing for pennies and nickels. Quince Cox says that Lemon always knew
the size of the coin being dropped into the cup and when a quarter or half
dollar was deposited, he would sometimes pick it out and feel it with his
fingers. From his late teens and through his twenties he played and sang at
picnics and parties around Wortham. It was at a Baptist picnic in Buffalo,
Texas around 1920 that a legendary meeting took place between Lemon and an
eight year old boy called Sam Hopkins. Imagine the 27 year old master
encouraging the future blues giant and allowing him to pick along as he sat
perched high up on a pickup truck..... By this time Lemon had already left
Wortham for the brighter lights of Dallas where he entertained dancing men and
women in the bars and brothels of Deep Ellum. In Dallas he was discovered in
1925 and as a result he relocated again to become a major recording artist in
Chicago.
(Oil
was struck on Thanksgiving Day, 1924, a few years after Lemon had relocated to
the big city, sometimes called “London” (but in fact Dallas) and the population
of Wortham swelled from one thousand to about 30 times that amount! Cox says
that he sometimes made a hundred dollars in one day shining shoes during the
Wortham oil boom. The boom lasted about seven years, and then the population
shrank back to its original size.)
The graveside memorial service was
opened by a woman from the Wortham Community Development Center. A gospel song
was followed by a strong scripture reading from the Book of Joshua by Elder
Davis of the Teague Baptist Church. After a prayer by Rev. Curtis Jefferson
(3rd cousin of Lemon) and a song led by Elder Davis, a fine account of the
musician’s life was read. A short gospel song was sung by the father of Rev.
Jefferson.
All present were invited to offer
tributes. An elderly black lady spoke movingly of her mother and her musical
family who used to invite Blind Lemon to play songs at her home when she was a
young girl. She had tears in her eyes as she remembered her mother and the
great musician. I gave a short tribute saying that Lemon and Lightnin’s music had
reached overseas to Scotland. Thanks were extended to all who contributed to
the gravestone fund, the very recent cleanup of the cemetery (under Joe
Butcher, with help last week from a group of prisoners), and for the respect
shown towards Mr. Jefferson’s memory and music. The Jefferson family members
talked with us and graciously posed for photographs.
A delicious breakfast was offered by
blues-eller John and his wife, who opened their home to fifteen or twenty blues
fans and Jefferson family and friends, including the fascinating Quince Cox.
Don O. gave Mr. Cox his tape of Blind Lemon’s music, and we listened to several
songs together after quizzing this living link to the past about Lemon’s looks,
personality, music and travels...
Later in the day the First Annual Blind
Lemon Jefferson Blues Festival kicked off in downtown Wortham. Curtis Jefferson
and his Imperial Gospel Singers sang two beautiful numbers a cappella. They
wore black suits and ties, four serious but joyful elderly men. We had fun
waving at all the kids being driven around by John’s wife on the festival golf
cart! Later Jim Suhler played three great acoustic numbers, including
Jefferson’s “the blues come to Texas loping like a mule” ('Got The Blues', 1926).
